Jenny Jackson and the Lightning Thief
by usernamesarehardtochoose
Summary: Jenny Jackson is an unusual girl who has a knack for trouble. She's diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD, and about to be kicked out of boarding school. Again. But when secrets begin to unravel themselves, it's like her world's descended to hell. Literally. Fem!Percy
1. I Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher

**This is my first fan fiction, so please, comment and tell me if this story is any good. There may be a few slight changes, but everything will mostly follow the original plotline.**

 **CHAPTER ONE**

 **I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-algebra Teacher**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Percy Jackson series. Everything belongs to Rick Riordan. Only Genevieve, or Jenny, Jackson, is mine.**

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When you hear about a hero, mainly a Greek one, you never really hear a woman's name. Most of the time, when you hear a someone bragging about their favorite hero, it's a male. Heracles, Jason, Odysseus, Perseus, Theseus, all male. How many women heroes can you name? Atalanta, Otrera, and that's pretty much the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.

However, when the chance presented itself, I took it. I jumped at the chance that I, a female, would become a great hero.

My name is Jenny Jackson, and this, this is my story.

I'm a twelve-year-old girl in sixth grade, who has dyslexia and ADHD, and somehow, I have an average B and C grade. I am actually quite surprised, because since I have several disorders, and it makes it incredibly frustrating to concentrate in class and do well. Now let's get on with my story.

I could literally start at any point in my life because my life is filled with very tragic things since the day I was born, but I guess everything started to make sense when my best friend, Grover Underwood, and I went on a field trip to the nearby museum of Greek and Roman art. To the troubled kids from Yancy Academy, this was a special treat, especially to the blockhead named Nancy Bobfit.

You may be wondering, why are you on a bus for troubled kids? Well, to tell you the truth, I am sort of troubled. Okay, I'm a really bad kid.

If you don't believe me, then here are several examples. In fifth grade, our class took a field trip to the Saratoga Battlefield museum. I hadn't been aiming for the school bus, but when the yellow bus exploded and found one of the cannons smoking, they immediately expelled me. And the year before that, our class took an unplanned swim when I accidentally hit the wrong lever with my elbow, and the catwalk we were observing on suddenly gave way and my entire class plunged into a pool filled with sharks in the Marine world shark pool while exploring the behind-the-scenes tour with somebody who worked there. I really like sharks, I think they're quite beautiful, but my class didn't exactly agree with me. I guessed from all the screaming and panicking. And the time before that... well, you get the idea. Anyways, I was determined to be good this trip. I mentally promised myself that I wasn't going to have another accident. Not again. But boy was I wrong.

We were on the bus, and Nancy was teasing and bullying poor Grover, and my math teacher, Mrs. Dodds, didn't even bat an eye, ignoring the fact that the red-headed girl as she threw parts of her peanut butter and ketchup sandwich into my best friend's lap.

Mrs. Dodds was probably the meanest teacher, no, person, in the world. She was a short, wrinkly woman who definitely looked mean enough to drive a motorcycle to your locker. She had transferred here when our last teacher had a nervous breakdown. On her first day here, she had figured that I was the devil's kid while Nancy was an angel's child. I still couldn't figure out why anybody would want to marry her. Her name was Mrs. Dodds after all.

"That's it." I started to get up but Grover pushed me back down into my seat.

"Leave it." He whispered. "You're just going to get in more trouble."

"Yeah," I muttered. "Leave my best friend in the claws of a monster."

I knew he was right, of course. I mean, the counselor took me inside his office just before this trip, and, flipping through my record, warned me to not do anything that could either mess up the reputation of this school, or make this field trip a mistake during my stay at the museum, or else I would be suspended. I do admit I don't exactly have the best of luck when it comes to field trips. I know why my teachers were so nervous. I really wanted to have a clean record this trip, but Nancy was making this extremely difficult for me. Instead, I only let out a groan of frustration before slumping down in my seat. Grover tried to reassure me that it was alright.

"It's fine," he said, trying to sound upbeat for my sake. "I like peanut butter anyways."

"I-" I began when my favorite teacher, Mr. Brunner, who taught history, shouted, "This is our stop!"

When I look back to this time of history now, I wondered why I didn't just punch Nancy in the nose and deliver her a black eye and bloody nose, because I would've at least stayed inside the school bus, where I would've been safe from all of the thins that was going to crash down into my ife.

Mr. Brunner didn't look like much, yet he was the only teacher in the school who didn't put me to sleep. He was our Latin teacher, always wore a tweed jacket, and smelled like coffee. On tournament days, he would challenge us with everything we ever learned in his class, and it was pretty cool.

The two of us stepped off the bus without saying a word. I was too busy paying attention to the glare Mrs. Dodds was sending me to notice the nervous look Grover kept sending me. Once, I told Grover that I didn't think she was human.

He looked dead serious as he replied, "You're right."

I told him it was a joke.

Mrs. Dodds was staring at me when Mr. Brunner was explaining the artifact we were supposed to be looking at. The carving looked really interesting, and I was trying to listen to it, but Nancy and her group of goons were snickering and whispering behind me. Finally, when one of the kids made a joke about the naked guy on the stele, I snapped.

Turning around, I said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than I needed it to. The entire class quieted down. Mr. Brunner stopped his lesson.

Quietly, my Lain teacher said, Do you have anything to say, Ms. Jackson?"

My face was about as red a face, or a tomato can get.

I said, "No, sir."

"Can you tell us what this statue is depicting, then?"

I looked at the artifact and felt a wave of relief because I actually recognized it.

"It's Kronos eating his kids, right? So there was this prophecy that said Kronos would be overthrown by his kids. So the king of the gods-"

"God?" Mr. Brunner echoed.

"Titan. But he ate all his kids, except for Zeus. Zeus overthrew his father with the help of his siblings by freeing them by making Kronos barf up all his kids."

"Eww!" Some of the girls gagged.

"Like we're going to need this in real life," Nancy mumbled beside me. "Like our job applications are going to say, 'Why did Kronos eat his kids?'"

"And," Mr. Brunner said. "To answer Ms. Bobfit's question, why would we need this in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut it," Nancy said, her face brighter than her hair.

I thought about it, racking my brains for the answer, but in the ends, I shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"Very well." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Yes, Kronos ate all his kids, and Zeus fed his father a mixture of wine and mustard, which was so disgusting that Kronos threw his children back up, and the six siblings destroyed their father, chopped them up, and threw the pieces into Tartarus. On that happy note, why don't we go and eat lunch? Mrs. Dodds, lead the way."

I was about to follow when Mr. Brunner called, "Ms. Jackson?"

I looked at Grover. "Go on, I'll catch up."

He nodded before following the rest of the class. I turned to Mr. Brunner.

"Yeah?"

"You must learn to answer my question." Mr. Brunner stared at me with the seemingly thousand-year-old eyes.

"About the Titans?" I asked although I knew the answer to that.

"No. About real life. And how my teaching applies to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me is extremely important. I will only expect and accept the best from you, Jenny Jackson."

I started to get angry. This guy was pushing me so hard. He seemed to forget about the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder, or the fact that I had never made above a B in my entire life. No, he expected me to be better, not as good as everybody else, but much, much better. I just didn't have the ability to learn everything that he taught us, much less spell them correctly. Latin was one of the hardest subjects for me, for all the names were almost the exact same.

"I'll try harder, sir," I mumbled.

He nodded, telling me to go outside to eat my lunch, staring at the statue of the girl in front of us with sad eyes, as if he had been to her funeral a thousand years ago.

Grover and I sat at the edge of the fountain, eating our lunch. I wasn't paying attention to their conversation as I gazed out across the slightly rippling water. There were a couple of teenage boys were was whispering to each other, and a group of giggling girls. An old couple was wandering around on the streets, looking around. Cars and buses drove around on the streets. I looked wistfully at the taxis that were driving passed us, wishing that I could hail one and go back home. I would be so happy to my mother, and so would she, but then she would get disappointed in me and tell me that I had to go back to school.

Nancy was trying to pickpocket an old woman who was currently just sitting on some chairs near us, the elder's eyes closed as Nancy tried to fit her fat hand inside the lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds had just turned around with such timing, not noticing the fact that Nancy was technically breaking the law because pickpocketing was part of stealing. Right? I pulled out my apple and stared glumly at it as if it had caused all the problems in the world. Grover looked at me in sympathy.

When he finally opened his mouth, I thought he was going to ask me what was wrong, but instead, he asked, "If you're not going to eat it, can I have your apple?"

I wasn't feeling all that hungry, so I gave it to him. Slowly, I reached into my bag and withdrew a sandwich, and was about to take a large bit from it when all hell broke loose. Nancy came striding next to us, and accidentally dropped the rest of her sandwich onto poor Grover's lap. I guess she got tired of stealing, not that she was successful anyways.

"Oops." She smirked.

I remembered what the counselor had said. "Count to ten, control your breathing and harness your temper."

But I couldn't. My vision turned red, my ears roared, and the next thing I knew, Nancy was screaming her head off, sitting inside the fountain, drenched in water. Mrs. Dodds seemed to materialize right next to her, soothing the hysterical red-head and promising to buy her a new t-shirt from the gift shop.

All around me, I could hear whispers over Nancy's cries of, "Jenny pushed me!"

"The water-"

"It grabbed her-"

"Did you see-"

Then Mrs. Dodds turned to me.

"Jenny Jackson!" She said triumphantly like she had been waiting for this moment the whole school year. "Come with me."

"Mrs. Dodds," Grover suddenly spoke up. "It wasn't Jenny. I was the one who pushed her."

"Nonsense." Mrs. Dodds smiled cruelly. "Ms. Jackson shall receive punishment for what she has done."

'But-"

"Silence!" Mrs. Dodds snarled. "Come with me, Ms. Jackson."

She glared at him so hard that his chin started to tumble under her furious gaze. Grover looked desperately between Mr. Brunner, Mrs. Dodd, and I as if hoping that he would see what was going on. But Mr. Brunner was still reading his magazine, oblivious to the rest of the world. I smiled reassuringly at Grover.

"I'm a big girl." I joked. "I can take care of myself."

He nodded worriedly. I followed Mrs. Dodds up the staircase, but not before I gave Nancy my I'll-kill-you-later deluxe glare.

Ok. I thought. She's going to make me buy Nancy a new t-shirt at the gift shop. But that wasn't what she was thinking. She led me back into the Greek and Roman gallery. It was completely empty except for the two of us. I sighed. This was where my math teacher was going to yell at me, tell me my punishment, and then make me buy a whole new t-shirt. Boy I was wrong.

"You've caused us a lot of problems this year, honey." She emphasized the word.

I didn't have a clue to what she was talking about, so I just said, "Yes Ma'am."

"Did you think that you were going to get away with it?" She grinned darkly at me.

"Uh, no, ma'am.," I said, trying to do the safe thing

The look in Mrs. Dodds eyes was making me nervous. It wasn't just madness. It was the gleam of evilness. I shook it off. She's a teacher. I reasoned to myself nervously. " She won't hurt me.

"Do you know what you have to do?" She growled., tugging on the cuffs of her favorite leather jacket.

And I mean literally growled. A rumbling sound was resonating from deep inside the back of her throat. I was getting more and more scared with each passing second.

"Yes, ma'am. Erasing notebooks for a week, maybe a month." I squeaked, terrified now.

"Fool!" She roared. "Did you think that we were fools, Jenny Jackson? Your time is up. Confess and you will suffer less pain."

"Uh-"

All I could think of was the illegal food I had been selling out of my dorm to make some extra money or the fact that I never read any of the books that my English teacher had assigned us. I copied every single word off the internet. Or worse, they were going to force me to read every book I had plagiarized.

"Your time is up!" She shrieked. "Die, honey!"

Then the weirdest thing happened. She began to change. Her skin wrinkled like an old person's, she shriveled into a hag, and her jacket morphed into wings. Her nails grew until she was an old, wrinkly hag with claws, teeth, and wings. I did the most reasonable thing ever. I let out a scream as I backed away, trying to escape the old hag. The ugly old thing let out a sinister laughed.

Then it got weirder.

Mr. Brunner came wheeling out, holding a pen.

"What ho, Jenny!" He shouted, tossing it to me.

I dodged the monster's blows and snatched the pen out of the air except for the fact it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword, made of bronze. When the monster came lunging at me again, I did the most sensible thing I could think of. I swung the sword. It caught the thing that used to be Mrs. Dodds on the shoulder and the monster let out a sort of strangled scream as a loud hiss filled the room. She exploded, changing into sand before my eyes, falling gently onto the floor. The wind eventually picked up the dust and carried it away. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes forcefully before opening them again. I was alone. There was a ballpoint pen in my hands. Everything was just a dream. Was my lunch contaminated by magic mushrooms?

I slowly made my way to the stairs, descending them to meet the rest of my class who were laughing and shoving each other, generally having a good time. Grover seemed to be playing with his fingers, looking nervous.

When I passed Nancy, she muttered, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

"Who?" I asked, confused.

"Our teacher. Duh."

"There is no Mrs. Kerr."

She scoffed before turning to her friends, muttering what a douche I was. I rolled my eyes. I walked over to Grover.

"Hey man, where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He hesitated a second before saying, "Who?"

"Not funny," I said as thunder boomed.

"Whatever."

I rolled my eyes again before walking over to Mr. Brunner.

"Ah, Jenny. That would be my pen. Please bring your own next time."

"Sir, where's Mrs. Dodds?" I said as I handed him it.

"Jenny," he said, leaning forward, frowning. "There is no Mrs. Dodds. In fact, I don't think there ever was a Mrs. Dodds in Yancy. Are you feeling alright?"

I never thought back to remember that I hadn't eaten my lunch that day.

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 **So that's my first chapter. The last sentence was supposed to go with the line, " Was my lunch contaminated by magic mushrooms?" Please RR and tell me if this story is any good or not.**

 **~UsernamesAreHardToChoose~**


	2. Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

**CHAPTER TWO**

 **Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death**

 **I don't own the series. Rick Riordan does.**

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I could handle the occasional weird thing. I mean, having ADHD did tend to do that to somebody. But this 24/7 illusion was way too far out of hand. Every day, for the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing a trick on me. Everybody was sure that this one woman named Mrs. Kerr was our teacher since Christmas. I was pretty sure that I had never seen that perky, blond woman in my entire life until she got onto the bus with us, and that she had never taught us. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was nice having her as a teacher instead of having Mrs. Dodds cackle in my ear all day, but still.

Every other day, I would try to trip somebody up by saying, "Oh, have you seen Mrs. Dodds?" or "Can you remember Mrs. Dodd's pointers?"

They would only stare at blankly before muttering, "Weirdo." and walking away, making me wonder if I was crazy or not.

It got so out of hand that I almost started to believe them. I mean, yeah, when everybody else in your school believes something else, and that when you're the only one believing something else, well, I don't know about you, but I would sure believe them. Except, you probably missed the key word. _Almost._ Despite everyone else's sayings, Grover couldn't fool me. Every time I mentioned that devil from Hell's name, he would pause, as if he was afraid, then claim that she had never existed and said that I was running on too little sleep and it was driving me crazy and making me hallucinate. I told him thanks.

When he said, "You're welcome," I told him it was sarcasm. Bless that dear boy. He didn't even know about sarcasm.

Still, I didn't believe him, because that boy really needed some lying lessons, No offense to him, but he was really bad at it. Like really bad.

I started to get cranky. I was losing sleep because of the trip to that museum. Every night, or, every morning, depending on how you looked at it, I would wake up in cold sweat, screaming my lungs out because I was sure there was an old, ugly hag at the foot of my bed, cackling, "Die, honey!" and trying to rip me to shred and yank out my organs with her claws. More than once, a teacher came running to see if a serial killer had gotten to our dorm. I started to get into fights. I was sent out of the classroom multiple times, almost every day and every class. My grades began to slip from Bs and Cs to Ds and Fs. Finally, when my English teacher, Mr. Nicholas, asked me for the thousandth time why I was too lazy to study for his weekly spelling, I snapped. I didn't even really know what I was doing. My mouth got ahead of my brain, and before I could stop it, my lips moved, a sound came out, and I knew I was in deep trouble. Mr. Nicholas called the counselor, telling him that I called my teacher an old sot. I didn't even know the meaning, but it felt good, releasing much of my stress. The following day, the Yancy Academy principal sent my mother a letter, telling her that I was not invited back to Yancy Academy next year *cough* expelled *cough* and explaining the reason why.

 _Fine,_ I thought to myself grumpily. _Just fine._

I missed our little apartment in Manhattan. I mean, I would have to put up with Gabe, Smelly Gabe, I-Will-Do-Something-Bad-To-You-But-If-You-Tell-Your-Mother-I-Punched-You-I-Will-Kill-You Gabe. but my mother would help me out. She always did, even if it seemed like an impossible situation. But there were a few things that I would miss about this boarding school. I would miss the beautiful view out of my window, and most of all, I would miss Grover.

Sooner than what I was comfortable with, exams were approaching. Every student was either laughing around and wasting the day away, or they were studying so hard their brain was rotting. I wasn't any of them. I studied, yes, but not that much. I didn't even care. I knew I would score a big fat F on every test they handed out in front of me. In the end, even though I had tried to fit all my subjects in, I had only studied for the Latin test. I mean, I did try to review the other ones, but Mr. Brunner's words kept ringing in my head.

 _"I will only accept the best from you, Jenny Jackson."_

I didn't know why, but I was really starting to believe my favorite teacher about this subject being life and death for me. I remembered the creature inside the museum, and how much it had scared me. I remembered how it had not been human, and how it nearly applied to the studies I had been learning about in Mr. Brunner's class. Monsters. And no matter how much I tried, I couldn't convince myself that I had been hallucinating and the vision of Mrs. Dodds was fake. It had felt too real, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't forget the incident.

The day before the exam, I threw my copy of _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology_ across the room in frustration. The words were swimming around in my head, doing one-eighties, and flipping around as if they were on some sort of skateboard. I let out a groan. I would never remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And spelling out all of those Latin words? Forget it. Slowly and tentatively, I made my way back to the book and picked it up, taking a deep breath before making a decision of a lifetime.

Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, and asked him for some tips, that might actually help me on the test. I had never asked a teacher for help before, but maybe if he gave me some pointers, then I would have at least tried. I didn't want him to think that I hadn't. I would be able to apologize for the big fat F I was going to score on his test. Two birds with one stone, right?

I made my way down the stairs. Grover hadn't come back up yet, so I didn't have to be very quiet, When I reached the bottom, I made a beeline for Mr. Brunner's office. The lights were on, and a shadow loomed behind it. I was about several steps away from the door when I heard a voice that was definitely Grover's voice.

"I'm worried about Jenny, sir."

I froze. I mean, I was a terrible kid, or so they said, they being my past teachers, but I didn't usually eavesdrop. But I dare you to try and not listen when your best friend is talking about you behind your back to a teacher. I dare you.

I took another step forward as I tried to listen in on the conversation, even going far as placing my ear on the cold wooden door t make out the words.

"... be alone during the summer. I mean, I just can't believe it. A Kindly One at this school! I thought she was safe. Now they know for sure, and so do we, but we have to do something, and we have to do it fast." Grover continued.

"We can not rush her, Grover. We will only make matters worse. We have to let the girl mature more." Mr. Brunner said calmly.

"But time may not be on our side. She only has until the summer solstice deadline..."

"My dear boy, it will have to be resolved without her. Let her enjoy her ignorance while she still can. When she finds out, they will come."

"Bur sir, she saw her, the Kindly One knew what she was..."

"The mist." Mr. Brunner said, almost insistingly. "The power it has over the students and staff will be enough to convince her of that.

"Sir, I... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice seemed choked up because of his bottled up emotions. "You... you know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover." Mr. Brunner said in his usual kind voice.

"How do you know that, sir?" Grover sniffed, making my heart break slightly.

"She still doesn't know, and we don't have anything major to worry about right now." Mr. Brunner said.

"Um, except the summer solstice deadline." Grover whimpered. "How could you forget about that?"

"Relax, my dear boy." Mr. Brunner said reassuringly. "That is not our problem right now, at least, it's not our concern as of the moment. As of this moment, our real concern is to keep the young girl alive until next year's school semester. We have to ensure her safety. Grover—"

My teacher's voice stopped, probably because of the echoing thud my book made again the wooden ground. I _swear_ , that book had something against me. It had landed just a little bit louder than necessary and had ruined all chances of eavesdropping even more. With my heart beating so loudly against my ribcage I could almost hear it, I picked up the book and began to back up slowly and into the nearest classroom. The door was locked. I let out a silent groan at my luck and ran as quietly as I could into the next classroom and—it was unlocked. I slipped inside and closed the door just as the door to Mr. Brunner's office creaked open. I breathed slowly and shakingly, trying to control my rapid heart. I could hear a strange sort of sound echoing from outside the door; a sort of muffled _clop clop_ of wooden blocks against the floor. I could smell a disgusting stench too, the smell of dirty farm animals rising and engulfing my nostrils as they burned. I couldn't hold in my curiosity anymore. What in the world was making that noise? And I didn't think they dragged a goat from the zoo here. Closing my eyes briefly and taking in a deep breath before letting them spring open, I peeked out of the glass that was so conveniently placed right above me. I let my breath tremble as a shadow emerged into my view, a shape to tall to be natural.

"Nothing." Mr. Brunner murmured, sounding slightly confused and worried. "I am sorry, my dear boy, for frightening you."

"No need, sir," Grover replied, his voice quivering just a little bit.

"My nerves haven't been the same since the winter solstice." My teacher mumbled.

"Either are mine."

"Neither." Mr. Brunner corrected. "Anyways, it is time. You should leave and go back to your dorm. You do, after all, have a whole day of exams waiting for you tomorrow. Just remember: your job is to keep Jenny safe."

"I will, sir It is my duty, after all. And she is my friend as well. But don't remind me about the tests." Grover muttered the last part.

Mr. Brunner's shadow retreated back to his office as a smaller shadow, Grover's, appeared for a second before it flashed away. I stayed in my position for a few seconds, breathing in and out heavily until I heard no noise but the ones I made. I didn't know how I managed to not make a single sound while hiding behind a door. Diagnosed with ADHD, I expected to have at least one spasm and hit the door on accident. But it seems like my fear got the better hand on me. I shook off my praises for myself. I didn't deserve any until I got back to my dorm safely.

When I was 100 percent sure that nobody was in the hallway, I soundlessly slipped out of the classroom and tiptoed up the stairs, determined not to wake up the whole school. I made it back to my life saver, my dorm, and, turning the knob inaudibly, slid back inside. When I turned around to close it and lock it, Grover spoke up suddenly behind me.

"Hey." He said, looking at me through, from what I could see, bleary eyes. "Where were you?"

"Out," I replied, not looking back meet his eyes.

Grover seemed to understand my hesitation, as he didn't press me any further. "Okay."

After a few seconds of silence, he spoke up again. "Are you ready for the tests?"

"Exams." I corrected.

Grover rolled his eyes. 'Same thing."

"Have I ever been ready for one?" I muttered.

"Quite true." Grover stroked an imaginary beard. "Quite true."

I gave him the evil eye while making my way over to my bed, collapsing onto it and sunk down, staring at the ceiling. My mind was racing, trying to process everything that had just happened. Why were Grover and Mr. Brunner talking behind my back? Why did they not tell me that they knew about Mrs. Dodds? Why were they trying to keep me in the dark? What the heck was Mrs. Dodds? What in the world was a Kindly One? Was Mrs. Dodds a, Kindly One, as they put it? I placed my book on the drawer next to my bed. Closing my eyes as I drifted into darkness, two thought flashed into my mind. One thing was clear. They were worried, very worried, about me. And they were worried because they believed that I was in some sort of danger.

I failed. I sucked more than the entire history of sucking. I knew I was going to manage to score a big fat F on every one of the tests. So it was just another test that the teachers gave out, as this was the tradition with tests and me. At least they offered some sort of comfort. After today, I would be going home. After today, I wouldn't have to suffer the continuous complaints of the teachers. After today, I would be able to see my mom again.

"Ms. Jackson!"

I jumped at the sudden sound of Mr. Nicholas's angry shout. I smiled sheepishly to the piece of paper in front of me. Seems like the old "sot" still didn't appreciate his name. Oh well. He will. In time. But it was sort of funny because when I turned in my test, I could see a vein pulsing like a beating heart. I could see his eyes tracing an F. Whatevs. I hated English anyways.

So every test was just like this one, except for the fact that their veins weren't pulsing or they snapped at me. But the eye thing? Yes. They were definitely all doing that. Except for, well, I'm sure you can guess. Mr. Brunner. I had Latin last, which helped my study just a little bit, but what do you know? I'm still going to get an F. After painstakingly reading the exam for a horrid three long hours, my eyes swimming and blurring from all of the Latin names and words I had probably misspelled, I handed it to my favorite teacher. When Mr. Brunner saw my test, he gave a small, but sad, smile.

"Don't keep looking upon it, Jenny." He said. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."

I knew immediately what he was talking about. My expulsion from this school.

"Oh." I think my voice trembled as I spoke. "I understand, Mr. Brunner."

But how can you blame me? I was dreading leaving this school, and here I was, standing in front of my favorite teacher, and he was telling me that it had been my destiny all along to be kicked out of this school after he had so convincingly convinced me that he had believed in me all along, hence that little speech he gave me inside the museum. Mr. Brunner seemed to realize the effect of his words upon me, and he tried to corecct himself.

"No, no, Jenny. No, I didn't—bless my soul, don't take it in that way. what I mean is that this was... this _is_ for the best. It had been only a matter of time before you left this school."

"Right." My voice definitely trembled. "Yes, of course. Thank you for telling me, sir."

"Jenny—"

I was gone before another word was uttered from his lips.

On the last day of school, I was half-heartedly shoving clothes into my suitcase.

Everybody was talking about their vacation plans, laughing and joking about. Some of them were talking about where they would want to go if their parents let them. As I listened to them, their intentions for the summer was wilder than the last. One kid was going to Europe to hike and sightsee, and, from what I heard, was going to visit every monument that the ancient Romans built. Another guy was going to go sailing, or, more precisely, going to cruise, around the Caribbean for nearly an entire month. The "popular" girls were gushing about their going-to-be trip to Paris and giggling over the Chanel and Hermes bags that they wanted to get. They, like me, were all junior criminals-in-waiting, but, unlike me, they were _rich_ junior criminals-in-waiting. Their daddies and mommies were all super rich. From what I had been told, some of their dads were celebrities, or ambassadors, or executives. They were practically bathing in gold, diamonds, and cash. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies, who came from a family of nobodies.

One girl asked, "Hey, what are you gonna do over the summer?"

I told her that I was planning to head back into the city. What I hadn't told them was that I was probably going to get some lame-ass job that twelve-year-olds could get, such as selling newspapers or walking dogs. Heavens forbid, I could even be a babysitter. Those devious little devils... They know just how to tug and snap my strings.

"Oh." She replied. "That's cool."

She went back to talking to her friends as if I was an invisible person she hadn't remembered talking to. The only person that I hadn't been anxiously waiting to say goodbye to was Grover. He was my best friend, and, well, my only friend. But then again, luck struck me. Just kidding, luck never struck me. Anyways, Grover was going back to the city, and, what do you know, had bought the same ticket I had and we were heading back to the city on the same Greyhound. When the two of us boarded the huge bus, Grover immediately looked tense. He seemed to have a nostril problem, as he was sniffing uncontrollably. It got so bad that I asked him if he wanted a tissue.

"No thanks." He replied.

Still, he didn't relax. He was glancing down the aisle, watching all of the other passengers. Whenever somebody got on or got off or moved, Grover would jump up like he was anticipating a fight. I realized that he had been acting like this ever since we had gotten onto the bus. He had acted like this at school too. I used to think that he was afraid of being beaten up by the other kids at school. But on the bus, there was nobody that would hurt him. Finally, it got out of hand. I was growing cranky from not being able to move that much and Grover's antics were starting to tick me off.

"What? I asked, quite crossly if I do say so myself. "Looking for more, oh, I don't know, Kindly Ones? Isn't that what you and Mr. Brunner called them?"

Grover flinched at the suddenness of my voice. Then his eye started to twitch.

"Wha—what do you mean? What's a Kindly One?"

I sighed. "Grover, I heard everything between you and Mr. Brunner the day before the exam," I confessed.

"How much did you hear?" Grover began to fidget in his seat.

"Oh, not much," I replied with a smirk. "What in the world is the summer solstice deadline?"

"Jenny, I was worried for your well being." Grover said nervously.

"Grover—" I tried to say but he cut me off.

"I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers that exploded into dust, I was really concerned." He started to talk faster and faster by the second.

"Grover, you're—"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that you were probably over stressed or something so that he should lay off on the homework and stuff—"

"Grover!" I interrupted. "I would love to believe you, but, needless to say, you are a very bad liar."

Grover's ears turned a bright shade of pink.

"Here," He fished around inside the pocket of his shirt. "Take this, okay? Please? Call me or come over of you need my help."

He handed me the card, which looked like a business card. I took it, looking up at him curiously. I looked down at the card, which was written in fancy script.

"Grover," I began. "You realize that I can't read this, no matter how much I try."

"Just try."

I squinted at every word. The first two were easy, as I soon was aware that it was just his name. The rest was not-so-easy. Finally, after the continuous murder of my eyes, I made out something on the card.

 _Grover Underwood._

 _Keeper_

 _Half-Blood Hill_

 _Long Island, New York_

 _(800) 009-0009_

"Hey, what's Half-Blood Hill?"

"Don't say it aloud!" Grover practically shouted. "It's my—it's my summer, um, address."

"Oh," I said a little crestfallen. "So you mean, if I get bored, I could come visit you at your mansion."

I know, I know, I sounded like a little brat. It's just that I never thought that Grover would be as rich as all of the other kids at Yancy. Grover nooded vigorously.

"Yeah. And, you know, if you need help or need me."

"Um, why would I need you?"

I didn't exactly mean for it to come out harsh, but I gave every indication that I thought he was useless. Grover blushed, right down to his Adam's apple.

"Look, Jenny, the truth is... well, the truth is that I kinda have to protect you. Protect you from, um, bullies, you could say."

I couldn't help but stare at him almost disbelievingly. Scratch that. Definitely disbelievingly. All year long, every single day, I kept Grover away from older kids that wanted to pick on him. I had gotten into fights that had added up to detention. I had lost sleep due to worry that he would get beaten up without me next year. And here was Grover, standing, well, sitting, in front of me, acting like he was the one that had defended me from the bullies. But I had a feeling that Grover wasn't talking about the bullies.

"Grover," I said slowly. "Tell me exactly what you're protecting me from."

He opened his mouth to answer but instead gave a loud coughing fit. I was about to strangle him for pretending to be sick when I smelled it—the disgusting stench of rotten eggs. Swiveling around in my seat, I saw the dashboard steaming and smoke pouring out of it. Then there was an immensely loud grinding noise underneath my feet. The driver cursed and turned the wheel, limping the groaning Greyhound onto the side of the road. After he wrestled around with the engine for a few minutes, he announced that all the passengers would have to get off. Grover and I filed outside along with all of the other passengers.

The view was beautiful. We were on a stretch of land, that, if we hadn't broken down, I never would've noticed it. On our side, there was a field of maple trees and litter that passing cars were throwing out of their windows. On the other side of the freeway was a fruit stand. Three old ladies were sitting behind it. The stuff on sale looked mouth-watering. Bloodred cherries and fat peaches, apples and walnuts. There were no customers, just the three ladies. Funnily enough, they were knitting a huge sock. Not your average big sock. If you cut enough holes in it, I think I could've rocked it like a sweater. The weirdest thing was that they were looking at me. Well, at least, they _seemed_ to be looking at me.

I turned around to ask Grover if he noticed what I was seeing when I saw that his face was pale, his lean figure shaking.

"Hey Grover, I started. "Look—"

"Tell me they aren't looking at you. "Grover's nose was twitching. "Please tell me they're not looking at you."

"Hate to burst your happy bubble," I muttered. "But they are. Well, they at least seem to be."

A thought suddenly struck me, and I let out a loose laugh, ignoring the sense of danger for just a moment.

" Hey Grover?" I asked.

He turned to me, his blood still not returning to his face. "Yeah?"

"Do you think those socks would fit me?"

Those seemed to be the magical words that transformed Grover into an annoyed, but scared, boy.

"That's not funny!" He whispered harshly. "Not funny at all. You have a weird and disgusting and terrifying sense of humor."

I snorted, swiveling around to see something that made my entire body scream, _danger._ One of the old ladies, the one that was plopped right in the middle took out her pair of gold and silver gigantic scissors that looked strangely like shears. She slowly moved them to the yarn. Her sisters? Relatives? Friends? Anyways, they stopped all work on finishing the sock. They paused whatever they were doing, looking like statues as the middle one lowered the scissors to the yarn.

I had a feeling that this moment was supposed to be dramatic, mysterious, and horrifying, but the I said teh first thing that came into my mind, which was stupid, but I blurted out, "Can't they hurry up already? Or are they so slow that a turtle can beat them?"

Grover looked like he was about to pass out, so I figured I said the wrong thing.

"Now. Bus. On." He didn't even put the words in the right place, just grabbed my elbow and tried to drag me over to the bus.

"What?" I frowned. "It's like a bajillion degrees in there."

"Now, Jenny!"

He pried open the doors to reveal blasting heat and climbed inside, but I dug my heels into the ground to prevent him from hauling me inside, curious to what was going to happen next. My eyes were transfixed upon the scene in front of me, not even flinching when the string finally snapped, my ears picking up the _snip_ of the yarn. The old ladies balled up the yarn.

Suddenly, a loud grunt attracted my attention. I whipped around to see the driver with his hand in the engine, trying to wretch something out of the engine. I spun back around to the old ladies, but they were gone, no trace of them ever existing.

Cheering broke the silence, and I figured the driver had managed to fix the bus. Turing around, I saw that my hypothesis was correct. The bus driver held a huge chuck of metal up proudly, like it was a gold trophy or something.

"Damn right!" He yelled, slapping his hat against the bus. "Everybody on board, come on!"

The passengers, still cheering, climbed aboard the vehicle. I had no choice but to follow them.

All the way back into the city, Grover kept on twitching and muttering, "No, not again, please no."

"Grover?" I asked uncertainly, but he ignored me.

"Six grade. They never get past sixth grade. They always—It's always sixth grade."

"Grover!" I interupted, now truly scared. "What does the snipping of the yarn mean?"

He looked at me mournfully, and I immediatly regretted asking.

"The snipping meant that somebody was going to die, right?"

If my guess was correct, then that meant—

"You think it's going to be me."

Grover closed his eyes, making a three-fingered claw over his heart and pushing outward, like a symbol to ward off evil or something. But the movement seemed ancient, like it had been created eons ago. I was trying to calm my racing heart as Grover only looked at me like he was already thinking about what he would say at my funeral and what type of flowers would look best on my coffin.

* * *

 **I'm sorry about this late update. Fanfiction had a habit of deleting my work over and over again, so I had to rewrite the entire chapter like six or seven, maybe even eight, times. And then I lost my phone, so that pulled me back for another few weeks. But I'm back now, to update. Thank you so much for sticking with me even after this long time no see update. And I also lost the book, so now I'm only going on memory. I'm incredibly sorry if there are any mistakes or any parts that was word-for-word quoted inside the book from the original copy. Since it's summer, I should update around next to next-next week. And I added some things because it looked like it fit. Because I had delayed this chapter for so long, I decided that I would make this a lot longer than the first chapter. Sorry my AN is so long. GTG**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose~**

 **-P.S.**

 **Sorry for any grammar mistakes. And sorry for so many sorry's that I wrote.**


	3. Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants

**CHAPTER THREE**

 **Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the series. Rick Riordan does. Only Jenny Jackson is mine.**

* * *

Okay, okay, I know that it was pretty rude of me, but I have to admit, Grover was really scaring me. He just kept on muttering random nonsense about death, and how I would never make it past sixth grade, like 'all the others'. So I ditched him the moment we got to the bus stop. Grover always needed to use the restroom whenever he felt anxious or nervous, so I wasn't surprised when he demanded that I wait for him as he held his bladder, running to the nearest restroom. However, I waited until he was inside the facility before hailing the first taxi that passed by.

"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.

Maybe I should put in a word about her before you meet her.

My mother's name is Sally Jackson and she is, by far, one of the greatest people alive right now. That proves my theory that the best people always have the worst luck out of the bunch. Her parents had died in an airplane accident, and she was sent to her nasty uncle who didn't really care for her. Her dream was to become a journalist, and so she spent most of high school saving up enough money to go to a decent, if not good, college. However, in her senior year, her uncle had caught cancer, and so she had to quit school to take care of him. When he finally died, she was left with nothing, not even a diploma.

She says the only good thing that happened to her was when she had met my dad.

I rarely ask my mom anything about my dad, because talking about him made her tear up a little. She doesn't have any pictures, but I can remember a warm feeling, and a flash of a smile, but other than that, he was nothing but a distant memory. They weren't married, but they still loved each other. My mom told me that he was a rich and important, and that their relationship had been a secret. Then, one day, he had set sail for something important, and he had never come back.

"He's not dead," my mother always told me. "He's only lost at sea. Not dead."

My mom, in order to support me and herself, had decided to take on jobs that most people wouldn't even consider. She, in her spare time, took night classes to help herself get her diploma. She managed to raise me on her own. Finally, just when things were starting to look up, she married the worst guy in the world. Gabe Ugliano. Seriously, whose last name is actually Ugliano? It describes him perfectly. Ugly. And uniquely bad. He was decent in the first ten seconds we knew him, but after that, he showed his true colors—the jerk that made other jerks feel ashamed of being so nice. To this day, I still don't understand how she could've ended up with him, seeing as she could've chosen a millionaire if she really wanted. Still, she threw away her happiness. Since the day I had met the man, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I know, I know, 'respect your elders' or something like that is one of the biggest lessons taught around. Whatever. Smelly Gabe didn't deserve any respect. He smelled like old moldy food that was wrapped in stinky clothes, and it was dumped into a hot room that had amplified the smell. Honestly, sometimes I think that he actually did somehow do what he smelled like, just in a weird sense. Now, prepare yourself to meet the devil, AKA Smelly Gabe, himself.

When I entered the tiny apartment that my mom had barely managed to keep over our heads, the smell of beer and cigars hit me strong. I gagged silently as I tried not to inhale too much.

"So, you're home." Gabe didn't look up as he dealt the cards in his stupid game of poker.

"Is my mom home?" I asked, trying not to breathe.

"No. Got any cash?"

I gritted my teeth, straining myself to not lash out and punch the guy. As I observed the living room, or more like the death room, I saw the difference in my step-father from the last time I saw him. He had put on weight, now resembling a hairless walrus. Actually, that's unfair to the walrus. Ignore my comment. He reeked of alcohol and his shirt was stained with oil marks. His three tiny struggling hairs on his head was combed back, like he thought it made him handsome or even remotely human. He somehow still received money from his work, where he, managed an electronic mega market, though I've never seen him go to work. Every day, he just spends hours playing cards, drinking beer, and smoking cigars. When he isn't doing that, he's either sleeping or he's eating. I really don't know why he hasn't gone to live with his cousins yet. I hear that pigs are actually quite intelligent though, and I don't blame them for not wanting a family member disgrace their name. I don't know how he wasn't fired yet, but he always received a paycheck at the end of the month, and he never used it for anything good. He always spent everything on things that was for his own pleasure, instead of trying to even help my mother pay the bills. Whenever I got home, he expected me to hand over cash so that he could use it to gamble, and so that he could buy more beer. It was always beer. Seriously, pick a different beverage. He called it our "little secret", which meant if I even tried to refuse, he would fake a smile and punch me unconscious when all his friends left.

"Nope," I lied, trying to stay casual. "No cash here."

Gabe raised a filthy eyebrow as he glared at me. Of course. I had forgotten that he could smell money, like how a shark could smell blood, which I had found extremely weird when I had first found out. I was also shocked at the observation, because I had expected that he never smelled anything other than his own stinking breath, as he was always covered in it.

"You took a cab, payed with a twenty, and probably have about five dollars left. Maybe even six or seven. Out now, girl."

He held out his hand, expecting the green papers. I scowled, before thrusting my hand into my pocket and retrieving the money that I had been hoping to save for something else.

"Come on, Gabe, the girl just got here." Out of the four people playing, Eddie, the super to our apartment, was the nicest.

Gabe glared at him. The other two guys farted at the same time. I nearly choked on the horrible smell, slamming the cash down.

"Hope you lose!" I called as I left for my room.

"Your report card came!" Gabe shouted. "I wouldn't be so snotty if I were you, idiot!"

I slammed my door close, and crinkled my nose as the smell of more beer invaded my nose. I set down my bags before rushing over to the window and forcing it open, the rust on the metal making it hard too. I stuck my head out of it, breathing in fresher air then I had in the past five minutes. I turned around and stared at my 'room'. Well, it wasn't actually my room. Gabe had just stuffed everything he could into it, trying to make it disgusting and inhabitable. He left mud all over the windowsill, dropping paper everywhere, spilling beer and smoking in here. A pair of dust covered everything; cans of random drinks and wrappers of random food littered my desk, and had food, old, moldy foo, just lying around. He said that it was his 'study' room, but he never studied anything. Well, if you count looking at old car magazines for about a thirty seconds studying, then yes, I suppose he did study.

I shivered as I thought about the three old ladies, and Mrs. Dodds. What the heck were they? The way Grover had acted freaked me out. He obviously thought that they meant something related to death, and I wanted to tell him he was out of his mind, but deep down inside, I knew that he knew more than me. He knew something about them that I hadn't. And I knew that if he did, then they did mean death. I knew I should be afraid. Something tugged at the back of my mind, and I tried to ignore it, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer. It was in front of me, but I just didn't seem to be seeing it clearly.

"Jenny?" A familiar voice called, and all my thoughts, along with my worry, disappeared.

I grinned as I spun around to see my mother. She seemed to be made of laughter and happiness, because every time she walked into a room, I immediately felt safe and happy, despite the conditions. Her eyes were multicolored, and they sparkled wherever she was, even if there was no light. She had several gray streaks mixed in with her hair, but I never thought that she was old. Whenever she looks at me, I feel like she just skipped over all the terrible things about me and went straight for the good. I've never heard her yell or shout at anybody, or even say anything unkind about someone. Even Gabe, who earned more than several unkind words, did not receive them.

She hugged me tightly, saying, "Oh Jenny, you've grown since Christmas!"

She smelled like the candy she worked with, taffy and candy canes and lollipops, and I could even smell a hint of peppermint. My stomach growled as the scent of starbursts and skittles wafted towards my nose and I breathed in deeply. Her red-blue-and-white uniform made her look cheerful, and every time I came back from school, she would bring me a huge supply of 'free samples' that she let me 'taste test' from her shop, Sweet on America in Grand Central. She didn't seem to care that I was expelled, and offered me the blue airheads that had been in the sample bag. As I devoured them without any mercy, my mom brushed a couple strands of hair out of the way from my face, demanding that I tell her the smallest details that I hadn't put in my letters back home. Ignoring my expulsion, she asked me the questions parents that loved their children should've asked. She asked if I was alright, if I was okay. I just smiled at her touch and secretly enjoyed it to the best of my ability.

"Hey, Sally," Gabe called in his stupidly obnoxious voice, "Why don't you get me some bean dip, huh? Come on, woman, get the bean dip!"

I heard him laugh with his friends, and they were saying something about my mother being such a slave and they joked about how she could've passed for a toy. I clenched my fists, trying to restrain my anger, though I was so close to punching them in the face. I took a deep breath, trying to control my breathing. In, out. In, out. My mother gave me a warning glance, trying to tell me to not do anything that would result in anger, fists, punching, bruises, or hospitals. I tried not to scoff.

"Jenny," my mom said quickly, seeing the wonderful shade of red my face had turned into, "I have a surprise for you."

I raised an eyebrow jokingly. "Is it a good surprise?"

"When is it a bad surprise?" She asked, and the two of us laughed silently.

"What is it?" I asked eagerly, wanting to take my mind of my fist connecting with a certain person's jaw.

"This week," my mother informed me, "Three day stay in Montauk. Just you and me."

My mouth fell open as I stared at her excitedly. "Seriously? The same cabin, same place, same everything?"

She ruffled my hair, smiling. "Yes, honey. Everything will be the same."

I let out a squeal of excitement, which I found foreign to my ears. I never really giggled or squealed, because I hated the idea that all girls had to act like lovesick fools. Honestly, it was just so frustrating.

"When do we leave?' I asked, containing myself.

She smiled at me. "Right after I change out of my uniform."

"Sally Jackson!" Gabe was shouting, like he wasn't less than twenty feet away from the two of us. "Get me some bean dip, now! All you have to do is heat it up, woman, it's not hard at all! Hurry it up!"

My fists were once again clenched into tight fists as I stared at the door, hoping that I could incinerate the horrible 'creature' (he didn't deserve the title 'man') and have him out of our lives for good. Of course, I didn't have heat vision like some crazy alien, so sadly, it didn't work. Oh well, a girl can always dream, can't she?

My mother shot me a look, mouthing 'Jenny, don't do anything reckless or anything that could make you end up getting in trouble.'

I rolled me eyes. "Mom, trust me. I'm not going to do anything."

"I hope so." I heard her mutter as she walked past me, heading towards the kitchen to get the stupid idiot some bean dip. I frowned when I realized that beans tend to make humans a little gassy. I would've liked to live a little longer, and I never thought that I would die at the hands of Gabe's farts. Oh well.

I followed her out the door, hoping to help her get everything done so that the two of us could leave this hell hole sooner. Smelly Gabe appeared in front of me, scowling when he saw that it was me instead of his wife making his bean dip.

"Sally—" he began, but my mother cut him off.

"I've made your bean dip, Gabriel," my mother said, holding up the plate.

Smelly Gabe narrowed his eyes at her, snatching the plate of food away. "Next time, hurry it up."

I was so close to snapping his neck, and I was about to do so when my mom said calmly, "Now, Jenny, come on. Let's go pack for the trip."

Gabe froze at her words. "Wait, you were being serious about the vacation?"

"Why wouldn't I be?' My mom raised an eyebrow as she subtly challenged her husband.

"It's just… it costs so much money. All of this is coming out of your bank account, right?" He asked her, oblivious to my burning glare.

"Yes, Gabe." My mother replied, trying to usher me back to my room.

"But then who's going to make the food around here?" Gabe asked, a look of panic suddenly crossing his face. "You can't let me starve here Sally!"

"Of course we aren't going to starve you." My mother said. "I'll make my seven layer dip for you. Guacamole. Bean dip. The works."

Gabe's face began to soften. "But then how are you going to get there?"

"We'll borrow your car, honey. Just of the weekend. Is that okay?"

Gabe looked like he was about to faint, but then his eyes flickered over to the plate of bean dip he help in his hands. I knew he was making some very simple calculations, because I don't think his brain can process anything above a hundred plus a hundred.

"So, in exchange for the car," Gabe said slowly, trying to figure everything out, "I'll get your seven layer dip?"

"Of course, honey." My mother forced a sweet smile onto her face.

He seemed to think about it. "Fine. But only if the girl apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

Maybe it would be better for me to shove my apology up your ass. I thought bitterly. Or force a book down your throat so far that you'll be speaking in chapter titles for weeks. But my mother's gaze was clear. Behave. Just for a few more minutes. Then we would be able to leave and go back to packing for our tip and we can leave this mess of a nightmare behind. I gritted my teeth and, using all of my strength, swallowed my pride down as I stared at my step-father, trying to put my most sincere expression onto my face.

"I'm sorry." I muttered, trying not to throw up the candy that my mom had gotten. "I'm very sorry for ruining your critical, life-threatening, and incredibly important poker game. I really do sincerely hope that you win, so please go back to your game right now and know that my wishes against you losing may help you win your next game."

I couldn't even look the man in the eye anymore. Oh my god, that was embarrassing. I had to make sure that I hit my head so that I would forget that I had ever apologized to a worm of his level. Gabe squinted, trying to see if he could detect any sarcasm. I had placed loads into my little speech, but I guess that Gabe was really just dumb, because he seemed to be pleased with my apology.

"Fine." He grunted, looking annoyed for some reason. "Take the car. But one scratch, girl…."

I had to suppress myself from rolling my eyes. He knew that I wouldn't even be driving the car, so why would he be telling me to not do anything? Honestly, this man had no hope of surviving a day without my mother's help. I secretly wished that he couldn't. That meant that when the two of us came back, he would be nothing but a pile of skin and bones. Oh right, of course, you can't forget the fat. Even in death, I don't think that the blubber will ever leave his disgusting body.

"Sally, get to work on the bean dip," he grunted, looking at me distastefully. "Now, preferably, before I change my mind about letting the two of you go."

My mother beamed, sending me a quick 'thank you' look over her shoulder as she made her way to the kitchen to make her seven layer dip. I took in a deep breath, forcing my legs to turn around and make my way to my room to pack. I could smell the dip cooking in the kitchen, and my stomach let out an involuntary growl. I chuckled slightly, patting my stomach, knowing that soon, I would be able to eat all the food I wanted. Without really thinking, I just threw everything I saw into a duffle bag, zipped it up, and was about to make my way to the door when I remembered something. Shrugging, I walked back to my closet, picked up my swimming suit, placed it into my duffle, and walked back out the door.

Half an hour later, my mother and I were outside of the apartment, loading the car with our two bags. As I slammed the trunk shut, I heard Gabe give a little whimper of fear. Without turning around, I smirked.

"One scratch," he called, glaring at me. "One scratch onto this car, and you're dead, you got it?"

I didn't even try to tell him that I wasn't going to be the one driving. There was no need. Anything that happened to this was going to be placed onto my shoulders. Even if a seagull ended up pooping onto the roof of his 'beloved', he would somehow blame me. He probably would've demanded that I fight the bird to the death or something. Maybe he would say that I should've wrapped the damn car in plastic wrap or something weird like that. Gabe was really insane. While my mother was getting some last minute things ready, I heard my pathetic excuse for a step-father groaning and moaning about losing my mother's cooking for an entire weekend. I scoffed. What a pig. If he had the body of a regular human, he could practically live off the dip for the entire weekend. But since he was related to pigs, I bet that the food wouldn't even last ten minutes. When the two of us were properly seated, I thought about what Grover had done on the bus—the three fingered claw marks, with the finishing touch of sweeping it out. Without thinking, I did the same thing to Gabe. Suddenly, a freak gust of wind blew through, sweeping my step-father off his feet, forcing him to slip in a puddle, and sending him flying down the stairs. He crashed into the ground, groaning in pain and trying to get his fat body off the floor. He failed spectacularly, somehow managing to let go of the rail and fall back onto his face. I cracked out a laugh, knowing he couldn't hear me because of the rolled up window. My mother raised an eyebrow when she saw the man on the ground, screaming bloody murder as the people around our apartment began to edge away, looking at the animal on the ground with a wary look in their eyes. When she saw my laughter, she had to present a smile as well.

"Jenny, I don't know what happened, but I'm guessing that this was an accident?" She asked me, a small smile tugging at her lips.

"I don't know. I was just playing around and then a gust of wind blew him right off his feet. When he was trying to get up, he slipped and fell on his face. Whoosh," I added, seeing the really? look on her face and deciding to demonstrate it with as much drama as I could muster.

My mother only laughed, shaking her head slightly. "Only you, Jenny. Only you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, feigning hurt.

My mom pressed her foot onto the gas pedal. "Hopefully you never find out."

I looked at her, mystified, but she just stared straight out into the horizon and I knew better than to question her when she literally holds my life in her hands. I mean, after all, she could crash the car if she wanted, and she could also drive it straight into a lake. So we left the apartment in silence. Well, at least between the two of us. I could still hear Gabe yelling at the probably now frightened pedestrians.

"What the hell are you all looking at?" Were the last words I heard from that place for a really, really long time.

When the two of us arrived at the little cabin that my mother had rented out, I breathed in the smell of the ocean and let a smile creep onto my face. As we drove to the place, I saw the difference it seemed to make on her. She seemed to turn even younger, her worry lines and darkened eyes disappearing as her eyes started to change to the color of the sea-green ocean. I knew that the beach had, and still was, incredibly important to her, even if she hadn't admitted it to me yet. This beach was where she had met my father. The cabin was just how the two of us had left it. Half-faded curtains weakly blocked out the glare of the sun, the sand dunes piling up in front of the ocean, the waves crashing against the ground. There was always something in the sheets, whether it was sand or dirt or some weird creature. The cabinets always had something living in it, and they always hid in the darkness of the shadows, never letting themselves be seen unless we pulled the drawers open and the light had seeped into the cracks of where they lived.

And I absolutely loved every bit of it.

We placed our bags onto the bed that the two of us had already picked out. We cleaned it out as best as we would, managing to get rid of most of the spiders, brushing off the sand, and kicking all of the dirt, dust, and anything related out the door. When we had finished, my mom produced her famous bag of food. We walked down the beach, feeding blue tortilla and corn chips to the hungry seagulls that made their way over to us. As we walked, the two of us enjoyed the blue jellybeans that she had brought home from her work. When it got dark, we sat down near our cabin and made a fire, roasting hotdogs, marshmallows, and, for me, pineapple. I know, a bit weird, but everybody to their own tastes, right? We devoured the blue taffy she brought, and wolfed down the blue skittles as we enjoyed the heat of the fire.

Great, I just realized that you guys are probably a little bit confused about all the blue food.

See, several years ago, Gabe had told my mother there was no such thing as blue food when she saw me tugging at her sleeve for any type of blue food. They had an argument over if it was real or not, which had seemed kind of ridiculous at the time. But my mom, determine to prove him wrong, had gone out of her way since the fight to make blue food. She always had a bottle of blue food coloring whenever she felt like shoving the fact into his face. She made blue birthday cakes, froze blue ice cream, mixed blueberry smoothies, and bought blue food, along with bringing in blue candy from her work place. I used to hate it, because whenever she did something like that, Gabe would get upset, and an upset Gabe was not something that anybody wanted to deal with. Soon, I grew used to it and even began to like it. It showed that my mom still had the rebellious side in her, like me. Her determination about blue food, along with the fact that she kept her maiden name, Jackson, instead of calling herself Mrs. Ugliano, made me proud of my mother.

She told me stories of when she was little, and how her life was before the plane crash. She told me about the ideas she had for her books, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop and start writing.

Finally, I knew that the question that had been bubbling up in me had to come out. I had to ask about my father. I always felt a little guilty whenever I asked, because I hated seeing my mother's eyes tear up a little whenever I asked about him, but she would send me a smile, telling me it was okay to ask and there was nothing wrong with wanting to know about one of my parents. She would always tell me the same things, almost worded exactly, but I never got tired of hearing them. I felt like every time she said it, I would remember everything even clearer, and the smile was more than just a trace.

"He was perfect," Mom said, wiping her eyes gently. "Powerful, handsome, tall. But he was always kind, and he always looked out for me. You have his black hair, and his green eyes. Jenny, if he could see you now, I know that he would be so proud of you."

I did my best at containing my scoff, and I managed to turn it into a sort of believable cough. Why would my father be proud of me? I was a dyslexic, ADHD kid, with an average C+ report card. Why would he be proud of a girl who had gotten kicked out of school every year she attended, without even finishing it?

"How," I cleared my throat, "How old was I when he left?"

My mom frowned, looking at me in curiosity. "Jenny, he never saw you. I mean, yes, he did know that I was expecting a baby, but he never did see you. He had to leave before I had given birth."

"What, how," I stammered, trying to get myself to pull a complete sentence, "But that doesn't make any sense. Why would he leave us?"

My mom's eyes turned misty as she looked at me. "We were only together for a summer, in this very cabin. He had to leave for an important voyage when I was pregnant with you. Trust me, Jenny, if he could've stayed, he would've. But he couldn't."

I glared at the ocean as if it was the source of all my problems. Why would my dad not even have the guts to marry my mom if he really loved her? Why would he leave without even meeting me? I thought that I had met him, when I had remembered the smile that couldn't have been my mom's, but now, to be told that he had never even seen me—well, I guess you can say that I was pretty angry at him. I hated him for leaving us with Smelly Gabe, because he didn't want to marry my mother.

Trying to concentrate on something else, I asked, "Are you going to send me away to another boarding school next year, mom?"

She sighed, shaking her head at my question. "I really don't know, Jenny, but I'm sure that we'll eventually figure something out."

"Is it because you don't want me around?"

My mother whirled around, and I regretted the words as soon as I say her teary face.

"No, it's not that, Jenny. I have to. I have to for your own good."

"Like what Mr. Brunner told me. Because I'm not normal."

"Oh honey, you say that like it's a bad thing. You're special. More special than you could ever know. I had thought that Yancy Academy had been far away enough. I thought…I thought wrong. I thought that you would finally be safe."

"Safe from what?" I asked, curiosity peaking in me.

She didn't answer, only looking up to meet my eyes. Then, the flashbacks hit.

I remembered the time in preschool, when I had been napping during sleep time. Somehow, a snake had gotten into my cot, and I had strangled it easily with my toddler hands. My mom had screamed when she had come to pick me up and found me playing around with the scaly rope of snake flesh.

In third grade, a man had started to stalk me in the playground. I was uncomfortable with the stare, so I told me teachers. At first, they thought that I was just horsing around, but then they started to realize that I was telling the truth. The man finally left when they had threatened to call the police, but nobody, not even my closest friends, had believed me when I had said that the man only possessed one, bloody eyeball under his hat.

Every year, something weird had happened, forcing me to change schools.

I knew that I should tell my mom about what happened in the art museum, with Mrs. Dodds, and what had happened with the old ladies at the fruit stand. I knew that she would definitely want to hear about it, but I also knew that telling her anything related to something unsafe would result in our trip getting cut short, and I didn't want that to happen. So I kept my mouth shut, knowing that I could tell her about it after we were done with our little vacation.

"I was selfish," my mother continued. "I wanted to keep you as close to me as possible. They told me it was dangerous. Possibly fatal. But I just couldn't bear to send you away to any place further. There was a second option, but…if I do that, it won't end well."

"What's the second option?" I asked her gently.

"A summer camp," she answered, her eyes brimming with tears again. "I could send you there, but if I did, then I would lose you forever."

"But mom," I said quietly, "If it's a summer camp, then why…?"

I trailed off when I saw my mother place a hand onto her mouth, and, I knew that if I pushed any harder, she would start to cry.

That night, I had the weirdest dream.

I was standing on Montauk Beach, but this time, the waves weren't soft. They crashed against the sand like it was punching it as hard as it could. The sky above crackled with lightning, thunder booming. The waves began to froth madly, the sea foam forming into a black mare, who tossed its head and whinnied angrily at the sky. A clap of thunder and a flash of lightning appeared, and it somehow combined to create an eagle, whose wings crackled and flashed with lightning. Then, the two charged at each other, the horse on its rear legs, kicking out at the eagle who dodged the strike, lashing its beak in the horse's face. Then, the horse stumbled, and that was all the eagle needed. It swooped towards to horse, and raised its talons, aiming for the horse's wide, terrified eyes.

No! I shouted, trying to get to them to stop. Too late.

I woke with a scream. I tried to calm down, but it was no use. Lightning and thunder pounded outside, a torrential of rain lashing against the window. The ocean beat mercilessly against the ground, the waves roaring and slamming into anything within its reach. A clap of thunder was enough to send my mom running down, hastily changed into a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.

"Storm," she said, looking panicked, her eyes wide with fear.

Then, a loud banging sounded downstairs. A weird sound, like someone yelling, was muffled through the door. I hurried to it, and threw the door open, only to let out a yelp. Grover stood there, but it wasn't Grover, I could only stare at him in shock. This, no, this wasn't real.

" _O Zeu! Thee mou!_ " He cried, wringing his hands. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her? It's coming! Go!"

But the only thing that I could do was stare at him, mouth hanging open. I rubbed my eyes, not believing what I was seeing, not noticing the fact that he had just swore in Ancient Greek and I had actually understood him. This wasn't Grover. But it also was.

"Jenny!" My mother's voice, though frightened, was stern and commanding. "Tell me, what happened? What happened at school?"

"Uh, uh, Mrs. Dodds," I stammered, trying to process it all. "She was a weird bat lady, or something like that, and Mr. Brunner threw me a sword. I chopped her up. And there were three old ladies at the fruit stand. They were knitting a sock, and they cut the string. Mom, what does that mean?"

"Jenny." Her voice demanded my immediate attention. "Go get your bag. We're leaving."

I rushed upstairs, grabbing my bag without throwing the clothes I had taken out back in, knowing that I wouldn't have enough time. I ran back downstairs, still trying to figure out what the heck was up with my best friend. When the three of us were ready, we sprinted for the car. Well, Grover wasn't exactly running. He was trotting.

"How, what…."

I couldn't even finish my sentence as I stared at Grover. Everything that had happened at school started to piece together, all the missing pieces I had forgotten, or the pieces that didn't match up. I started to understand how Grover could run like hell was at his heels during enchilada day, and still manage to have a limp whenever he walked. Because there stood my best friends, his legs dripping with water, his shaggy hindquarters shaking water out, and where his feet were, was a pair of cloven hooves.

* * *

 **Oh my god, it's been forever, hasn't it? I wrote an incredibly long chapter, because I felt terrible for making all of you readers waiting. I know that there is no excuse for it, so I guess that I don't have anything to say really, except for the fact that I probably won't update in a while, because I'm currently stressing over grades and everything, so I might not have time to update. If I do, then the chapter would probably be rushed, short, and have so many grammatical errors you'll cringe. Sorry about the EXTREMELY late update, so I hope that 6,000 words would be enough to make you satisfied.**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose~**


	4. My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

**My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting**

 **I don't own Percy Jackson**

* * *

My mother didn't release her foot from the gas. We sped along the road as I tried to process everything.

"So your half-goat? Like a satyr?"

Grover chuckled. "First question, but yes. Like a satyr, cause I am one."

I looked at him, wide-eyed.

"Grover, satyrs don't exist. They're in myths, and myths, they're not real. They're just ways to make ancient people understand the world. Saytrs are not real."

"Obviously they are, because I'm right here, aren't I?"

"Okay, fine, let's say this isn't a prank. Next question. Do you and my mom, like, know each other?"

Grover glanced outside. "Well, we've never met formally. But she did know that I was your protector."

"My protector?"

"It's literally in the name. I have to protect you, Jenny."

"You said, on the bus. But what? What do you actually have to protect me from? And why do you have to protect me?"

"Children! Please! I'm trying to get us there safely." My mom's voice was etched with worry.

"Where are we going?" I whispered to Grover.

"Camp Half-Blood, of course." He replied.

"Half-Blood?" I asked, wrapping my brain around the term.

"Not half-blood as in hoppa. Half-blood, as in half-human."

"Grover, you do realize that you aren't making much sense, right?"

"When we get there, everything will be explained."

"When we get to someplace for people that are half-human. Okay, I'll admit, you guys got me there for a second, but seriously, what's going on?"

"Jenny," my mom said carefully, "why would we lie to you?"

"Because, because, you want to prank me?" I struggled for an answer.

"Jenny, nobody wants to prank you. All of this is very real, and very, very dangerous."

"Okay. First question, is this the summer camp that you wanted to send me to? Or, not send me to?"

I could see my mother's knuckles tighten on the steering wheel as they turned a deathly shade of pale. "Yes, Jenny, it's the summer camp."

"I hadn't even met dad before! Why would he want to send me to some stupid summer camp?"

"Jenny," Grover said nervously, "this isn't a stupid summer camp. It's a place where your type is safe."

I snorted. "My type. ADHD and dyslexia kids. In a summer camp."

Grover hesitated. "Not exactly. Yes, they have ADHD, but it's not strictly related to that only."

"Okay, give me a straight answer. For once in my life, I am saying the words, please."

"We can't." From the reflection I saw in the rearview mirror, I saw my mother's eyes shine with fresh tears. "The more you know, the more dangerous it will be for you."

"Mom, I can handle a little danger," I protested.

"Not this time."

"Mom, seriously! I'm twelve, I can handle it."

"Jenny, please." Her voice cracked. "I can't afford to lose you too."

I swallowed down my words as I realized why my mom had been acting this way. She was scared. Dad already left her, and she was scared I was going to too.

"Mom," I promised, "I'm never going to leave you."

She tried for a weak smile, but it seemed forced, probably because it was.

"Thank you, Jenny, but it isn't really your choice. It's theirs."

"Who's they?"

Nobody answered as we thundered along the road as my mom tried not to crash the car. Then, behind us, I heard a roar that was _definitely_ not human. I let out a squeak of surprise.

"Wherever you're taking us mom, hurry!"

She pressed her foot onto the gas even harder, if that was possible. A lightning bolt struck the area about twenty feet away from the car. My mom swerved it, but the roar sounded again behind. This time, it was closer. My mom's grip on the wheel tightened.

"One more mile, please," she murmured to herself again and again. "Just another mile."

An earth shattering _BOOM_ suddenly rattled my mind as a lightning bolt seared our car. The car did a one-eighty, flipped, and landed upside down, making me black out for a few moments. I blinked, and my vision restored.

I coughed. "Mom?"

"Jenny?" She sighed in relief. "Oh, you're alright. Let's get Grover out of here."

"Oh no." I muttered, turning around to see my best friend unconscious, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. "Grover!"

Nothing happened. And then….

"Food." He moaned, and I knew there was still hope for him.

I yanked open the door and grabbed him by the ends of the armpit, dragging him out. My mother crawled out of the driver's door and landed in a heap, coughing. I turned my head to the car, and I remembered Gabe's words. _One scratch. One scratch and you're dead, you got it?_ Oops. The entire camaro had exploded, the explosion leaving trails of ash and dust in its wake.

"Mom, help me carry Grover."

"Jenny, listen. See that pine tree? You have to cross that, then run down the hill. Don't let go of Grover. Yell for help. Don't stop."

"What about you?"

She didn't say anything, which was an answer itself. I shook my head in disbelief.

"No! I'm not going to let you die! Come on, Mom, help me carry Grover."

She didn't respond, but grabbed Grover's legs and slowly moved up the hill. We were moving, but not fast enough. Another roar shook the forest. Mom paled.

"Faster!"

I broke into a run, trying to get to the top of the hill, but Grover was heavy, and the hill wasn't getting any flatter. Who knew hills could be so steep? We were nearly there when _it_ appeared.

It was a large figure that smelled of bulls and sheep, with a fuzzy blanket over its head, which probably would've made it impossible to see, much less run. That would play nicely into our favor.. It had to have been at least ten feet. Yet, on closer inspection, I realized it couldn't have been holding up a blanket, because his hands were waving around his head. And those horn-like things...

"Jenny." My mother's voice was deadly calm. "Run."

Feeling a sudden outburst of strength, which I guess was adrenaline, I grabbed my mother's arm and dragged the two up the hill. Still, the tree was too far away—at least another hundred meters. We wouldn't make it there alive.

"Jenny," my mom said, "put Grover down."

"What?"

"Trust me!"

I set him down on the grass, careful to make sure he was safe, well, as safe as he could be as the thing roared.

"When it charges," My mom said. "Stand still, as still as you can, and then jump out of the way at the last second. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"One, I have ADHD, which would made standing still incredibly hard, but yes! How do you know all of this?"

"I've been very worried about an attack. But I was selfish. I tried to keep you close to me."

"How is that selfish? I want to be near you too!"

The two of us back up slowly. Then, the monster turned to us, and I suddenly remembered it's name. I had to swallow down the bile rising in my throat, because this thing could not be real. All of this was a dream. That thing was fake. It had to be.

"It's the Mino—"

"Shh." My mom warned. "Names have power."

"But-"

"If you have to call it something, call it Pasiphae's son."

"Mom! It's just a myth! It can't be real! This whole this is a horrble nightmare!"

"Separate!" She didn't reply to my question as she darted away.

"Mom!" I shouted.

But my voice attracted the attention of the Minotaur. It turned to me, and began to charge. I forced myself to be still, and leaping out of the way and letting it crash into the tree as my mother came out and the two of us dragged my best friend out of harm's way and past the tree. We were only a few feet away when my mother let go.

"I can't go any further." She said sadly.

"I'm not leaving you!'

"Jenny, call for help, and do not st-"

"MOM!" I screamed as the Minotaur grabbed her.

"Go!" She managed to choke out before the monster squeezed her and she disappeared into a flash of golden light. Time seemed to slow down as I let out a cry of rage, leaving Grover at the tree and taking a step towards the Minotaur, my fear and sadness replaced by anger.

"Where did you take my mother?"

It let out a roar, leveling it's head at me. I was aware of lights flickering on down below me, but I wasn't done yet. The thing glared at me, the smell of wet cows hitting me like a ton of bricks. It charged, its hands next to it's body to keep me from running away. I should've died, but somehow, I jumped, kicking off the Minotaur's face and landing on it's neck. How the heck did I do something like that?

"Food!"

I cursed in my head, because if I spoke, I think my tongue would've come off. I had forgotten about Grover. I placed my hands on one of its horns as it began to violently shake me around. I tried desperately to remember how Theseus had defeated the monster back in the old days. He had used the monster's horns against itself, didn't he? He had used chains to rip the horn clean off, and then used the weapon to kill the Minotaur. I knew that it was my only hope. I had to at least try and do what the hero had done.

I yanked the horn back, trying to break it free. The Minotaur seemed to understand what I was trying to do. It ran forward, crashing into a tree. If I hadn't been gripping onto the horn with all my might, I would've flew a hundred feet into the air and turned into a Jenny-sized pancake. Thankfully, though the sudden shock of it let my teeth chattering and my eyeballs rattling around in my head, I avoided that. It seemed angry, and I realized the monster knew exactly how I was going to kill it. It, after all, had been killed in the same way. But I couldn't just not try. It let out a roar and—CRACK! The Minotaur let out a sort of scream as I flew backwards, my head hitting a rock, my vision darkening for a second as I crumpled in front of the pine tree.

But in my hands I was holding a horn, the size of a dagger. It charged towards me again, but this time I was ready. I rolled out of the way, my kneecaps screaming in pain, and brought up my horn, right into its rib cage. It howled before turning into sand, blowing away in the wind, just like Mrs. Dodds. I staggered over to Grover, grabbed him by the arm, and dragged him down the hill. Everything was a blur that night. I remember crying, screaming, calling for my mother, yelling for help, and not letting Grover go under any circumstances. I made it to a large house where the door opened, and a handsome boy, who's posture made him look like he carried himself highly, like how a prince would. A shockingly familiar face, along with the boy's, stared down at me. I collapsed onto the ground, trying to form a sentence, but my mouth wouldn't move, even though I used my last remaining strength to try.

"Take her inside, Will." Mr. Brunner said quietly.

The last thing I remember was the blond picking me up before I bowed down to darkness.

* * *

 **What's up my fellow readers? I'm sorry to say that this chapter isn't really my best work, but I decided that I should post a bit sooner than later. Yes, Yes, I know, this isn't a very long one. Actually, it's quite short. But still, I hope that you guys will like it. Thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews! I'm glad you guys like it. I'm not pressuring you guys to review, but, I'm just saying, when you do, it makes me more motivated to update. Well, I really don't know when the next chapter will be up. I have projects and tests and whatnot, so, I'll try to get it up ASAP.**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**


	5. I Play Pinochle With A Horse

**CHAPTER FIVE**

 **I Play Pinochle with a Horse**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson**

* * *

I woke up several times. The first was with the blond that had brought me in. He was feeding me some golden pudding that tasted strangely like buttered popcorn, and immediately felt my forehead the moment he saw that I was awake.

"Go back to sleep." He had a melodious voice. "You need rest."

 _I'm fine_ , I tried to protest, but the moment I opened my mouth, I fell asleep.

The second time I woke up, the blond was gone. Instead, there was a guy standing in the corner, with eyes all over his body, half of those blue orbs on me, the other half watching the door. I was so exhausted, I fell asleep at once.

The third time I woke up was the one where I didn't fall back asleep. I was in a hospital bed, with fluffy white pillows supporting me. A blanket was draped across me. I let out a soft groan, touching my head as it pounded. My mouth was dry, like a scorpion had been using it for a nest, and my entire mouth was sore. Looking around, I observed my surroundings. A glass cup sat on top of a counter, with a golden substance rippling inside. A straw and a paper umbrella stuck through a cherry rested against the glass. I picked it up, but nearly dropped it because of my shaking fingers.

"Careful."

"Grover!"

My best friend smiled when he saw me.

"Awake, huh?"

I might've cried in relief, except I didn't have enough energy to do so. Maybe everything had been just a bad dream, because the Grover who stood in front of me was the Grover I'd known throughout sixth grade—a regular human, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and converse, with a shoe box tucked underneath his arm. He wasn't the goat-boy that had terrified me out of my wits last night, or whenever. My mom was safe. We were at this house for some reason. We were still on vacation. Perhaps my brain had been groggy last night, making things up as I was too tired to think straight. And...

"You saved my life," Grover said. "The least I could do was give you this."

He handed me the shoe box, and, dread filling my stomach like lead, I opened it. Inside, a black-and-white horn lay, jagged from where I tore it off of the monster, and the tip was splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been been a nightmare. Emptiness spread through me.

"The Minotaur."

"Um, Jenny, I don't think it's a good idea—"

"That's what they called him in those Greek myths, isn't it?" I snapped. "The Minotaur. The beast of Minos. Half-man, half-bull."

"You've been out for two days," he said, changing the topic. "How much do you remember?"

"I... I don't know. Is my mom really—is she...?"

He didn't respond for a second, but I could see the sadness and the remorse filling his eyes. I stared out at the valley. There was a lush green meadow, a cluster of trees, and a gently trickling stream. A light breeze blew through the area, the sky being the clearest blue I've ever seen in my life. Everything looked beautiful. Nothing should. Nothing should look beautiful. My mother was gone. The world should be black and white.

"I'm a horrible protector," Grover sniffled. "I should've been there to protect you. I'm the worst satyr in the world. I'm—I'm a failure."

He began to cry, stomping his foot so hard that the thing actually came off. Okay, not his foot. The converse high-top came off. Inside, there was Styrofoam, with a hoof-shaped hole in the middle.

"Oh, Styx," he mumbled as he tried to get the shoe back on.

As Grover struggled to put on the shoe, I could only stare at him. Well, that settles it. Grover was actually a satyr. As in a real-life, living proof of the Greek myths. I was ready to bet all the money I had that if I shaved his head, I would find small horns growing from it. But I was too miserable to care. My mother was gone. She had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light. What was I supposed to do now? Live with Smelly Gabe? No. I would never do that to myself. I would live on the streets. Go to the foster system. Maybe ask Grover for help. I would pretend to be seventeen and join the army. I would do _something_.

Grover was still sniffing. The poor kid (get it?) looked like he was about to cry, or he was expecting a hit from me.

"Grover," I said, "it wasn't your fault."

"Yes it was, Jenny. I was supposed to protect the two of you."

"Did my mom ask you to do that?"

"Well, no. But it's my job. I'm a keeper, a protector. Well, at least I _was_."

"Then why would—" the world suddenly spun and I had to keep myself from vomiting.

"Woah, don't strain yourself. Here."

He helped me bring the glass to my lips, and I recoiled in shock as the taste exploded on my taste buds. I had been expecting apple juice, and that wasn't what I tasted. Instead, it was like a chocolate chip cookie. A blue chocolate cookie. The ones that my mom made when I was little. It tasted like it was still warm and buttery, the chocolate still melting. My grief, unsurprisingly, didn't fade away, but I felt as though I had a part of my mother with me at that moment—as if she had just given me a cookie, ruffled my hair, and told me that I would get through, and that everything would be okay. Before I knew it, I had drained the glass. I stared at it, positive that I had just consumed a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.

"Was it good?" Grover asked.

"Yeah," I said softly, nodding as well.

"What did it taste like?"

He sounded so wistful, I felt bad immediately. "Sorry. I should've let you have some."

His eyes widened. "Oh no, that's not what I meant at all. I meant... I was just wondering."

"Chocolate chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."

"And how do you feel?"

"Like I could throw Nancy Bobfit a hundred feet."

He chuckled at my analogy, but he nodded. "Good. That's good. I don't know if you can risk drinking anymore of that."

"Uh, what do you mean?"

He didn't answer, but took the glass from me gingerly, as if it would explode, and set it down

"Come on. We don't want to keep Chiron and Mr. D waiting."

My legs were wobbly, and they protested against my decision to walk so far, but I ignored it. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn when he saw me struggling, but I refused his help. I paid for that souvenir the hard way. There was no way was I going to even let it out of my sight.

Then, when we reached the end of the house, my breath caught.

We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley spread all the way up to the water, which glittered in the sunlight about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply just couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was scattered with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture-an open-air pavilion, and an amphitheater, a circular arena-except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses actually had wings.

Down at the porch, I saw two men facing each other, and a blonde girl leaning against the railing. The man facing me was small and chubby, and he had a big watery nose, red eyes, and hair so black that it looked purple. He looked like one of those baby angels you usually find in paintings. He looked like a painting of Cupid gone wrong—very, very wrong. A middle-aged god of love. Like one of those cherubs. He could've fit right in with one of Gabe's poker parties, but I had the strangest feeling that this man could out-gamble even my step-father.

"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured, "the camp director. Be polite. The girl, her name is Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than anybody."

I had a feeling that Grover was going to say more, but then a panicked voice interrupted him.

"Grover! Chiron! Have you seen the new demigod?"

I turned around to see the boy that had been feeding me the golden pudding. He had tousled golden hair, and summer-blue eyes. He was taller than me, maybe by three inches, and much, much more athletic looking. With his tanned skin, he was exactly the stereotypical look that I thought that Californian boys would have. He had an alarmed look in his eyes, but it faded when he saw me.

"Oh. Hello."

"Um, hi?"

I mentally slapped myself. Why did I make it come out like a question?

He took a step towards me before a familiar voice stopped him. "You can make your checkups later, Will."

"Mr. Brunner!" I cried as I spun around.

My Latin teacher smiled at me, with a mischievous look in his eyes, like that time he had a pop quiz and he made all of the multiple choice questions B.

"Ah, it's nice to see you, Jenny. Now we have five for pinochle. Will, please join us." The blond boy took a hesitant step towards the table, mumbling something about how he was bad at the game. "Jenny dear, this is Will. He's your medic. Or, er, was, your medic. Annabeth, why don't you go and check on cabin eleven and see if they have room for one more?"

Annabeth looked at me. She was, like Will, tan and tall, maybe about the same height as me. She was also pretty athletic looking, and her blonde hair was curled like a princess's. She almost looked like the stereotypical Californian girl, but her eyes ruined the image. They were stormy grey—pretty, but also quite intimidating. They looked like she was analyzing me, trying to figure out all my weaknesses, and then taking me down in a fight. She looked at the Minotaur horn in my hands, and then back at me. I figured she would say something like _you're so_ _cool!_ or _You fought the Minotaur?_

Instead, she said, "you talk in your sleep," and sprinted off, her hair flying behind her in the wind.

I shrugged. It could've been worse. Now, if I said something embarrassing, then _that_ would be bad.

"So," I said, changing the subject, "you work here, Mr. Brunner?"

He smiled at me again, but it looked sad. "Not Mr. Brunner. I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"Okay." I was totally confused, but I knew that if I pried even more, I knew that I would become even more and more confused. "And, uh, Mr. D. Does that stand for something?"

He stopped shuffling his cards and looked at me as if I had just belched loudly. "Young woman, names have power."

"Yeah, as everybody keeps telling me," I muttered, "but I still don't get how saying Jenny is gonna make me bust out some ninja moves."

I hoped nobody heard me, but when I looked up, Will cracked a smile.

"Grover?" I asked.

"What?"

"Uh, is Will licensed? Did he go to a medical school?"

"Will Solace? Nah. But don't worry," he said hastily when he saw my horrified expression, "he knows what he's doing."

"I must say, Jenny," Chiron cut in, "I'm quite glad to see you're alive. I'd hate to think I'd wasted my time. It's been a long time since I've made a house call a potential camper."

"House call?"

"The year that I was at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me the moment he met you. He sensed that you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... uh, take a leave of absence."

I thought hard to the beginning of the school year. It seemed like ages ago, but I think I did have a fuzzy memory of there actually being another Latin teacher during my first week at Yancy. Then, without an explanation, he had just vanished, and Mr. Brunner had taken control of the class.

"You went to Yancy just to teach me? Why?" I asked.

Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't really sure about you in the beginning. We managed to contact your mother, and we let her know we were keeping an eye on you just in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."

"Grover," Mr. D demanded, "are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Grover's entire body trembled as he took the last chair, though I didn't have a clue as to why he should be so afraid of a chubby little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"You do know how to play pinochle, right?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I said.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.

"Sir," I repeated, thinking about the way Harry Potter had sassed back to his teacher. I was liking the camp director less and less.

"Well," he said, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the magnificent games ever, invented by humans. I would expect that all civilized young women to know the rules and how to play them."

"I'm sure the girl can learn," Chiron said.

"Please," I asked, "what is this place? Why am I here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy just to teach me?"

Mr. D snorted. "I asked the exact same question."

The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time a card landed in his pile.

Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to do in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average grade was, I was his star student. He expected me to always have the right answer.

"Jenny," he said. "Did your mother really tell you nothing?'

"She said ..." I tried my best to ignore the memory of her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me that she was scared to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to do so. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave, or maybe even want to leave. She said that she wanted to keep me close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young woman, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I asked.

He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."

"Orientation film?" I asked.

"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Jenny. You know that your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"—he pointed to the horn in the shoe box—"that you have managed to kill the Minotaur. No small feat, either. What you may or may not know is that great powers are at work all around you while you live. Gods—the very beings that you call the Greek gods—are very much alive."

I stared at everybody else at the table.

I waited for somebody to yell, _Not!_ but all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!"

He cackled as he tallied up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not planning to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Huh? Oh, all right."

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully. Will muttered something as he threw in his cards, sometimes throwing a concerned look over my way, like he wanted to check on how I was doing, but I was still wary about his methods.

"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Chiron said. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter. We shall not deal with the metaphysical."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"

"Oh, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature humans, and the Earth altogether: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?"

"Yes. The gods we discussed in Latin class."

"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. Artemis. You mean them."

And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.

"Young woman," said Mr. D, "I would be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you. One wrong name and you'll turn into a pile of dust."

"But they're stories," I protested, unwilling to believe what they were trying to tell me. "They're—they're myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and other stuff. They're what people believed in before there was science to explain everything."

"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Genevieve Jackson"—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your precious 'science' two thousand, three thousand, years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That it's all just rubbish and nonsense. That's what. Oh, I just love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they have come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this girl and tell me."

I didn't really like Mr. D, and I doubted that I would later, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... as if he wasn't one. It was enough to make dread crawl up my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.

"Jenny," Chiron said, "you can choose to believe or not, but fact is—immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Never leaving this earth? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

I was about to answer without thinking, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal to me, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate a little.

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.

"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning, or thunder? What if I told you, Genevieve Jackson, that some-day people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little girls can get over losing their mothers?"

My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I still don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."

Grover said, "P-please, sir. She's just lost her mother. She's in shock."

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with girls who don't even believe."

"Jenny." It was Will who spoke.

He set down his cards and moved over to where I was sitting. He took my hand, making me look up in surprise.

"Everybody doesn't start out believing," he said softly. "In fact, four years ago, I was you. I refused to believe in gods, because I couldn't bend them into my reality. How could they be real? I thought that if I really had a godly father, he would've helped me when I was in trouble. The truth is, I knew, deep down, that Chiron and Mr. D were right. You know it too. But you also know that if you do accept reality, then there's no way out."

I wanted to argue with the blond boy, but I couldn't. He was just too darn smart.

After Will's little speech, Mr. D waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.

My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.

"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.

"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

More thunder.

Mr. D snapped his fingers, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron smiled at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

"A nature spirit." Will offered an explanation

I didn't want to tell him I already knew what a wood nymph was. I was afraid I was going to come off rude.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely terrible ten years! The second time—well, she was really very pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for unbelieving brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with children rather than tearing them down.' Ha. Absolutely unfair."

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

"And ..." I stammered, " and your father is ..."

"Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this girl the basics, at least. My father is Zeus, of course."

I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master and if he didn't show respect, he would turn into a carpet.

"You're Dionysus," I stated in surprise. "The god of wine."

Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"

"Y-yes, Mr. D."

"Then, well, duh! Jenny Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps? Maybe Demeter?"

"You're a god." I said in shock.

"Yes, child."

"A god. You."

Will, who had let go of my hand, grabbed it again and squeezed it, telling me a quiet warning—don't goad him. But it was too late. Mr. D turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, pudgy little man was only showing me the smallest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.

"No. No, sir."

The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."

I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your not-so-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face was dotted with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Jenny Jackson. And mind your manners."

He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Jenny, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?"

"Well, of course," Will said.

"The gods move with the heart of the west," Chiron said.

"The what now?"

"Come on now, Jenny. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands upon thousands of years. The gods are a part of it. You can even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire first kindled in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods."

"And then they died. Or faded, as you said."

"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Jenny, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club. Will didn't say a word, but I got the feeling that he didn't know how to cut in.

"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"

Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he was going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk. Will smiled at my reaction to my former Latin teacher's transformation.

"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, the both of you. Let's meet the other campers."

* * *

 **I guess this book isn't on hold anymore. I kinda got lazy with this chapter, so towards the end, some parts of it will seem directly out of the book, and it probably it. Well, most of it. I changed some of it, but I decided to just copy and paste and change. How long has it been? Five months? So sorry to keep you guys waiting. And thanks to you all for over a thousand views! I don't know when's the next time I'll be updating—my schedule's kinda weird, if you haven't noticed. Since it's summer, I have a vacation planned, so I don't know if I'm able to update in that country. Anyways, I decided to update before I left so you guys wouldn't think I abandoned you. Thank you all so much for the reviews! They really motivate me.**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**


	6. I Become Supreme Lady of the Bathroom

**CHAPTER SIX**

 **I Become the Supreme Lady of the Bathroom**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson**

* * *

After I had gotten over the fact that my teacher was indeed a centuar, we had a nice tour of the camp, which involved Will poking random parts of my body and asking me questions. I did my best to answer them, but I was still wary of his methods.

"I'm the son of Apollo," Will explained. "The god of healing. So basically I'm better at medicine than most people, even those who've spent their entire lives dedicated to medicine."

"That doesn't seem fair," I mumbled, but let him continue with his checkup.

When we passed the volleyball court, several of the campers waved to Will, but the rest just stared at me like I was from outer space. One of them pointed to my Minotaur horn and muttered something to his friend.

Another kid said, "that's her."

Most of the campers, most being nearly all of them, were older than me. Satyrs were trotting alongside them, and all of them were bigger than Grover, making me wonder about their age. They all sported bright orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD t-shirts. I wasn't normally a shy person—heck, I was the opposite of a shy person, usually, but the way that they were staring at me made me feel... uncomfortable. It was almost like they were expecting me to do an Olympic gymnastic routine for them or something.

"Will, dear, why don't you run along with Annabeth. I'm sure you can do your checkups later."

"But Chiron—" Will protested, then seemed to realize it was a bad idea.

He stiffly nodded, before, like Annabeth, running off towards a large cluster of buildings. I looked back. The Big House was larger than I had anticipated—it was a four-story building, the walls the color of the sky, with a white trim, like it was some sea resort for the rich. I was admiring the gleaming weather vane on top—a brass eagle—when something caught my eye. The curtain on the top floor rustled. A shadow. There was nothing there, but I could've sworn something moved it—and I had the strangest feeling that I was being watched.

"Erm, Chiron?" I asked.

"Yes, child?"

"Uh, not to be rude or anything, if it's rude, but what's up there?"

I pointed at the uppermost window of the building. Chiron's smile faded, and I knew immediately that it was a bad question.

"Nothing, my dear. Just the attic."

"Er, does anybody live there?"

He studied the window like it was the most interesting thing he's ever seen.

"No," he said finally. "Not a single living thing."

I was pretty sure that he was telling the truth, but I was also pretty sure that something had moved the curtain. And the way he said living...

"Come along now, Jenny," he said, but I noticed that his original lighthearted voice had now become a little forced. "There's lot to see, and no time to waste."

The first stop was the strawberry fields, where campers were picking at the little berries and the satyrs were playing a melody on reed pipes. Chiron explained that the camps grew very nice strawberries, and when it came to harvest times, they would sell the berries, well, not berries, to local New York restaurants and a special delivery to Mount Olympus.

"It pays for our expenses," the centaur explained. "And the strawberries take little to no effort."

Chiron told me that the strawberries just had some sort of weird effect with Mr. D's power. Whenever he was close by, the fruit-bearing plants would just go crazy. Of course, as he was the god of wine, it worked best with grapes, but, as he was restricted from growing them as part of his punishment, the camp grew strawberries instead.

As I watched a particular satyr playing a tune on his reed pipes, I noticed that the music was causing a trail of little bugs to scuttle away from the plants in every direction, like a school evacuation, and trust me, I've been in plenty of those. In the back of my mind, I began wondering if Grover could work that kind of magic whenever he played music. I also wondered how he was faring back in the farmhouse, or if he was still getting chewed out by Mr. D. The thought made my blood boil.

"Grover... he won't get in too much trouble, right?" I asked Chiron hopefully. "I mean... yeah, he had his faults, but overall, he was a good protector. Really. I promise."

Chiron heaved a sigh. He took off his tweed jacket and draped it across his stallion's back, like it was some sort of low-quality saddle. "Grover, my dear, has incredibly big dreams. Perhaps they are so big that they are unreasonable. To be able to reach his goal, his first task would be to find a demigod and successfully bringing him or her back to Camp Half-Blood, thus proving his courage and his skills in being successful in his job as a keeper."

I bit my tongue to keep myself from telling him that he put way too many words in a sentence. "But Grover... he did just that!"

Chiron pursed his lips. "I might just agree with you, Jenny. But alas, it is not my place to judge how well he did. That would be the Council of Cloven Elders and Dionysus' decision. And I'm afraid that they might not see this mission as a success. After all, Grover did lose you in New York. Then there's the...er... unfortunate fate of your mother. And seeing that Grover had been unconscious when you dragged him, or the two of you, over the property line, the council, and Dionysus, might question whether or not this showed any courage on Grover's part."

I desperately wanted to protest. None of what happened during the last three days had been Grover's fault. And I felt really, really, guilty. Maybe if I hadn't left Grover to fend for himself at the bus station, then none of this would've happened. His career might be on track, and my mother... my mother might be alive.

"He'll get a second chance, won't he? He was really a good protector."

Chiron winced, like that question pained him. "I'm afraid that that was Grover's second chance, Jenny. Of course, the council wasn't exactly anxious to give him another one, either, after what had happened the last time, five years ago. And Olympus knows, I've advised him to wait a few more years. He's still so young and small for his age."

I wanted to argue that he couldn't bee too young for his age, but instead asked, "how old is he exactly?"

"Oh, he's just turned twenty-eight."

I stared at Chiron with eyes the size of saucers. "What! And he's still in sixth grade? How is that even possible?"

"Jenny, satyrs mature at half the rate that humans do. Grover has been the equivalent to a middle school student for the past five years, and, if we include this one, six."

"So shouldn't Grover be in eighth grade? And that's horrible."

"It is," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is, even by satyr standards, still quite a late bloomer. He's also not very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was quite anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now, with a little luck, he'll find some other suitable careers..."

"That's not fair though,' I protested. "What happened the last time? It couldn't have been that bad, could it? Was it really that bad?"

Chiron seemed to be very interested in something else, as he looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we? There's lots more to see."

But I still wasn't exactly ready to let the subject drop. There was something burning in the back of my mind—the fact that Chiron had been intentionally avoiding the word death when he had been talking about my mother's fate. And I realized, after a few of seconds, that the burning feeling in the back of the my head was hope—the thought that maybe my mother could be saved...

"Chiron," I asked hesitantly, "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real... does that mean that the Underworld is real too?"

Chiron's face darkened. "Yes, child. There is a place that spirits dwell after the end of their lives. But, until we know more, you should put that thought out of your head."

I frowned as I noticed the careful wording Chiron put into that sentence. "Uh, what do you mean, 'until we know more'?"

"Come now, Jenny. Let's go and see the woods."

As we began nearing the edge of the forest, I began to realize just how big it was. The woods took up at least, if not more, a quarter of the valley, and the trees were so thick and tall that you couldn't help but imagine that nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.

"The woods are stocked if you wish to try your luck," Chiron told me. "But of course, go armed."

I stared at him, confused. "What are the woods stocked with? Armed with what?"

Chiron smiled faintly at me. "You'll see. Friday night will be Capture the Flag. I suppose that you didn't bring your own shield and sword, or, I daresay, even have a pair?"

"My own what now?"

"No," Chiron mused. "Of course not. I think that perhaps a size four will do, or maybe a five. We'll go visit the armory and figure this out later."

I was doing my best to hold myself back from asking him what kind of summer camp had an armory, and so, Chiron, thinking that that part of the conversation was over, continued our nice tour of the camp. We visited the archery range, where a dozen kids were lined up in front of targets. At an order, the arrows flew threw the air, each hitting the bullseye perfectly. We went to see the canoeing lake after, where about twenty kids were racing each other over the water. we didn't spend too much time at the stables, seeing as Chiron seemed quite anxious to leave that place. The javelin range consisted of several kids throwing the weapon as far as they could, reminding me of the Olympics in a way. The sing-along amphitheater was mainly used after dinner, when the Apollo cabins would lead the other kids in a sing-along, hence the name. Finally, we visited the arena, where Chiron explained to me that that area was quite popular for spear and sword fights.

"Spear and sword fights?" I asked in confusion.

"Cabin challenges and all that," Chiron told me. "They're not lethal. Usually. And, oh, of course, how can we have missed the mess hall?"

Following his finger, I could see an outdoor pavilion that had Grecian columns framing it, the pavilion overlooking the sea. In the middle, a cluster of a dozen stone picnic tables. There were no roofs, and there were no walls.

I frowned. "What do you usually do when it rains?"

Chiron looked at me as if I had gone just a little bit insane. "Well, we still do have to eat, don't we?"

I knew that asking him more questions would just result in me getting confused, so I decided to just drop the subject.

Finally, towards the end of our tour, he showed me the cabins. Other than the fact that all of them had a large brass number over their doorway, with the odds on the left, and the evens on the right, none of the cabins looked anything alike. Number nine had tiny smokestacks on top of it, making the cabin look a little like a factory. If I had to guess, I would say Hephaestus. Number four had vines growing through them, a grassy roof, and plants on the window sills. Perhaps Demeter. Number seven seemed to be made of real gold. The metal gleamed so much in the sunlight that I was sure I would go blind by it. It had to be Apollo's. All of the cabins faced a common area, which was around the size of a soccer field, decorated with statues, fountains, flowerbeds, and a couple of basketball hoops. In the center of it all, there was a huge stone-lined fire-pit. Despite the sunny afternoon, the hearth was smoldering. A little girl about the age of nine was poking at the coal with a stick. I waved at her, and she waved back, a little stunned.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them. Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.

I pointed at them. "Zeus and Hera?"

Chiron smiled, as if a little pleased I knew the answer. "Correct."

"Well, their cabins are empty."

Chiron nodded. "Yes, that's true. Nobody ever stays in one or two, for reasons I'm sure you'll figure out."

Great. So each cabin represented a different god, so kind of like a mascot. Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But Chiron was wrong about something. I didn't know why some of them were empty.

As the two of us walked ahead, I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, and, judging from the number above it, I would say it was cabin three.

It wasn't like cabin one. Cabin one had been high and mighty, but cabin three was long, low, and solid. The outer walls were embedded with pieces of seashell and coral, the walls themselves made from a rough gray stone. It looked as if they had been cut straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peeked inside, as the door had been wide open, and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you!"

Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls were glowing like abalone. There was a total of six empty bunk beds with their silk sheets turned down, but there was no sign, nothing, that anyone had ever slept there. There was dust covering almost every inch of the place. The place felt so sad and lonely. I was glad when Chiron placed his hand on my shoulder, saying, "come now, Jenny, lots more to see."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red-a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer. She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit, though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.

I turned away from them, trying to keep her glaring eyes off, and continued walking, steering clear of Chiron's hooves.

"Is it just me, or have we not seen any other centaurs?" I asked.

He smiled sadly. "No, it's true, I'm afraid. We haven't. My cousins are barbaric and wild folks. You might, perhaps, encounter them in the wilderness, at major sporting events, or at a party. But you will not be able to see any here."

"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really...?"

He smiled down at me. "The Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules, Jason, and all that? Yes, Jenny, I am."

"But, shouldn't you be dead?"

Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about should be. The truth is, I can't be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."

I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list. I really hated little kids, even though I know I used to be one. They just got so annoying after a few minutes.

"Doesn't it ever get boring?"

"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."

"Why depressing?" I asked eagerly.

Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.

"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth and Will are waiting for us."

Annabeth and Will were in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven. Annabeth was reading a book, while Will was drawing something on the ground, his stick pushing dirt away as he stared at it in concentration. As we drew nearer, I realized that Will was drawing out a battle plan. It had the basic outline, from what I could tell, of the forest, with circles here and there, in which I would be guessing that they were warriors. Annabeth, however, looked over at me critically. I found myself suddenly hoping that I hadn't said something weird in my sleep, because that would be embarassing. Will looked up after a few moments, smiling at me when he saw me.

I loved to read, and, curious, I tried to see what Annabeth was reading, but I couldn't understand the title. I thought, annoyed, that my dyslexia was acting up, before I realized the title wasn't exactly in English. The letters looked Greek to me, as in, like, literally Greek. I mean, yeah, I valued knowledge, but seriously, learning a foreign language was kinda too far for me. There were pictures of temples and statues and different types of columns, like she was reading an architecture book.

"Annabeth, Will, I have a masters' archery class at noon. Would the two of you take Jenny from here?"

"Of course, sir," they said at the same time before Annabeth blushed.

"Cabin eleven, Jenny," Chiron said as he waved at the door, silently telling me to go on. "Please, make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those

doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it... ? A caduceus.

Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Jenny. I'll see you at dinner."

He galloped away toward the archery range.

I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."

So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself. There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.

Will announced, "Jenny Jackson, meet cabin eleven.

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.

I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."

Everybody groaned.

A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Jenny. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

"This is Luke," Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing. Will was snickering on the side. She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" I asked.

"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down, but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.

I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

"How long will I be here?" I asked.

"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laughed.

"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"I've already seen it."

"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside, Will following, sighing. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.

When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."

"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I kill some bull guy-"

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

"Annabeth!" Will interrupted. He sounded different, but not in the same way Annabeth did when she talked about Luke. There was a dangerous touch to his voice, almost as if he was daring her to continue insulting me. "She's new, okay? She just lost her mother, was told her father is a god and all Greek myths are real, her best friend might be sentenced to some horrible punishment, and, on top of that, was told she was a half-blood. You can't exactly expect her to react nicely with stuff like this."

Annabeth didn't reply, but I noticed the knuckles on the hand gripping her knife had turned white. Deciding that asking Annabeth questions would just get my head chopped off, I turned to will and began a Q&A with him.

I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was the Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."

"Yes."

"Then there's only one."

"Yes."

"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."

"Monsters don't die, Jenny. They can be killed. But they don't die," Annabeth sniffed.

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."

"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they reform," Will explained.

I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword-"

"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

"You talk in your sleep."

"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"

Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her, but it was Will who answered, "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."

"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny, even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Jenny. It depends on who your parents are. Or ... your parent."

They stared at me, waiting for me to get it.

"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."

"I'm sorry about your mom, Jenny. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."

"He's dead. I never knew him."

Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father's not dead, Jenny."

"How can you say that? You know him?"

"No, of course not," Will said.

"Then how can you say—"

"Because I know you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about me."

"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."

"How—"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."

I tried to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"You don't have to be embarrassed, Jenny," Will said gently.

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign," Annabeth said, sounding like she was talking about something related to the matter of life and death. "The letters float off the when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Jenny, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"

"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."

"Ambrosia and nectar."

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better." Will explained. "It's what we use, most of the time, for all injuries."

"Besides," Annabeth added, "that stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a halfblood."

A half-blood.

I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.

I opened my mouth just as a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"

I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

''Erre es korakas!" Annabeth said, which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat. She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"

"Jenny Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."

I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"

Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."

Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Jenster."

"Jenny."

"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."

"Clarisse—" Will tried to say.

"Stay out of it, sun boy."

Will and Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.

I handed Will my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.

I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron. She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I could think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier johns.

Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.

"Like she's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, she was so stupid looking."

Her friends snickered.

Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers. Will repeated smacked his forehead so much I was worried about how many brain cells he would be left with at the end.

Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets. I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.

Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach. I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet, making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.

I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hit-ting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt. The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.

She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her. But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.

As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.

The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth and Will hadn't been spared. They was dripping wet, but they hadn't been pushed out the door. They was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock. At least Will wasn't banging his head against his palm anymore.

I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.

I stood up, my legs shaky.

Annabeth said, "How did you ..."

"I don't know."

We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage. She gave me a look of absolute hatred. "You are dead, new girl. You are totally dead."

I probably, no, definitely, should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."

Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.

Will stared at me. I couldn't tell whether he was grossed out or angry at me for dousing him.

"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking," Annabeth said, "that I want you on my team for capture the flag."

* * *

 **LMAO how long has it been? I was really eager to get this chapter up, but I was also really lazy, so most of the second half is taken directly from the book. Also, guys. ONE THOUSAND SIX-HUNDRED VIEWS!? I can't believe it. Here I was, just an amateur writer, thinking I wouldn't get to even a hundred views. You guys are so freaking amazing. I love you all. Thank you all so much for the support!**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**


	7. My Dinner Goes Up In Smoke

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 **My Dinner Goes Up In Smoke**

 **I don't own Percy Jackson.**

* * *

Word of the bathroom incident spread immediately. Wherever I went, campers pointed at me and murmured something about toilet water. Or maybe they were just staring at Annabeth and Will, who were still pretty much dripping wet. Annabeth, after showing me the metal shop (where kids had actually been forging their own swords, which I hoped to never do, because my arts-and-crafts skills were out of this world, in a bad way, of course), declared that she had to take a shower and that the smell was overpowering.

"I've got to shower," Annabeth said flatly. "Dinner's at seven-thirty. Just follow your cabin to the mess hall."

"Annabeth, I'm sorry about the toilets."

"Whatever."

"It wasn't my fault."

She looked at me skeptically, and I realized it was my fault. I'd made water shoot out of the bathroom fixtures. I didn't understand how. But the toilets had responded to me. I had become one with the plumbing.

"You need to talk to the Oracle," Annabeth said.

"Who?"

"Not who. What. The Oracle. I'll ask Chiron."

She left, and Will had to finish the tour, but I thought he felt a bit awkward after she had stomped off.

He showed me the arts-and-crafts room (where satyrs were sandblasting a giant marble statue of a goat-man, and I hoped to never walk in there), and the climbing wall, which actually consisted of two facing walls that shook violently, dropped boulders, sprayed lava, and clashed together if you didn't get to the top fast enough.

"Er," I said uncertainly, "has, anybody, like, ever died?"

Will shook his head. "Nah, but we've come pretty close. I, personally, think too close for comfort. I think Chiron wanted to take out the lava for those who were just starting, but Mr. D thought that keeping it would help them train better."

He didn't add it, but I was sure he was thinking, _besides, Mr. D wouldn't care if we died._

Finally we returned to the canoeing lake, where the trail led back to the cabins. I was grateful for the fact that Will didn't treat me like an outsider. I mean, Annabeth treated me like I was the gum under her shoe, but Will...

"Will," I asked slowly as a sudden thought occurred to me, "names have power, right?"

"The first thing that's been drilled into everybody's heads, yeah?"

"Why does Mr. D insist we call him that, then?"

He frowned. "Because names have power?" He sounded slightly lost.

"No!" I slapped his arm lightly. "I mean, if I were an all-powerful being, I would have all these kids saying my name and just being my outlet. Like, yes guys, please mega-charge me and make me cool."

He chuckled. "Remind me to never let you become a god."

"Hey!"

He gestured for me to follow him towards the lake, and, a bit confused, I followed him. He sat down, patted the spot next to him, and I took a seat, raising an eyebrow.

"You're not gonna kill me where nobody can see or hear, right?"

He rolled his eyes. "There are naiads in the water, obviously. They're not gonna let me kill you."

I stared at the lake, but even though Will told me about people, or something, in the lake, I wasn't expecting anybody to be looking back at me from the bottom, so my heart skipped a beat when I noticed two teenage girls sitting cross-legged at the base of the pier, about twenty feet below. They wore blue jeans and shimmering green T-shirts, and their brown hair floated loose around their shoulders as minnows darted in and out. They smiled and waved as if I were a long-lost friend.

I didn't know what else to do. I waved back.

"Don't encourage them," Will warned. "Naiads are terrible flirts."

"Naiads," I repeated, feeling completely overwhelmed. "That's it. I want to go home now."

Will frowned. "Don't you get it, Jenny? You are home. This is the only safe place on earth for kids like us."

"You mean, mentally disturbed kids?"

"I mean not human. Not totally human, anyway. Half-human."

"Half-human and half-what?"

"I think you know."

I didn't want to admit it, but I was afraid I did. I felt a tingling in my limbs, a sensation I sometimes felt when my mom talked about my dad.

"God," I said. "Half-god."

Will nodded. "Your father isn't dead, Jenny. He's one of the Olympians."

"That's ... crazy."

"Is it? What's the most common thing gods did in the old stories? They ran around falling in love with humans and having kids with them. Do you think they've changed their habits in the last few millennia?"

"Um, didn't Chiron say it was a bad idea to insult gods?" I asked.

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Yeah?"

"Uh, that didn't really count as an insult, right? Because I would hate to have the only person that doesn't hate me to be like, incinerated or something. Didn't Mr. D mention, like, self-combustion?"

He laughed. "I don't think they've taken it as an insult, seeing as I'm breathing and whole."

I shrugged. "You never know, they might've zapped off a finger."

He studied me carefully, like I was a map he had prepared for battle, and he was making sure it was flawless. I shifted uncomfortably.

"You're taking all of this rather well," he said at last.

I grinned. "Yeah, because I have my reasons that I will not state out loud because _that_ would definitely get me killed."

"That bad, huh?" he asked.

I nodded seriously. "Like you wouldn't believe."

He laughed again, the sound bringing a smile onto my face.

"So, are all of the kids here half-god?" I asked.

"Demigods," Will said. "That's the official term. Or half-bloods."

"Then who's your dad?"

He sighed. "Apollo, god of archery, medicine, music, poems, to name a few."

I blinked. "I never understood why he was the god of so many things."

He shrugged. "I don't know either, but what I do know is that that means there's a wider variety of things that his kids are good at, and so some of his kids, like one of my sisters, is better at healing but cannot make a haiku to save her life."

I nodded, before asking, "whose your mom?"

He pursed his lips. "My mom... god, I haven't seen her in years."

I frowned. "How long have you been at Camp Half-Blood for?"

"Four years," he said.

"And, you haven't seen her ever since you were..."

"Eight," he supplied helpfully. "Yeah. She's always asking me to go back home, but I can't. I just don't wanna risk her life, you know? Being a demigod is dangerous enough, but I don't wanna put her in danger."

"That's sweet," I murmured, "but she must miss you."

"I write to her at least once every two weeks, so hopefully, not too much."

"What about Annabeth's dad?" I said, getting curious.

Will looked nervous, looking around before leaning in. "If Annabeth knew that I was telling you this, she would have my head on a stick. She and her dad, well, they don't really see eye to eye. Her dad is a professor at West Point. All I know about him is that he teaches American history, and she hasn't seen him since she was very small. Last time someone asked, she nearly took their eye out."

I raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Will snickered. "After she had told him a very sensitive topic, the conversation went something like, 'he's human.' and then she said, 'What? You assume it has to be a male god who finds a human female attractive? How sexist is that?' before he stuttered and ran off after her hand had tightened on knife."

"Whose her mom, then?" I asked, curious.

"Athena. Goddess of wisdom and battle."

"And nobody has a clue as to who my dad is," I said.

Will sighed heavily. "I have an idea, but, gods, I hope I'm wrong. Last time this happened, the tree incident took place."

"The tree incident?"

"Don't mention it in front of Annabeth or Luke," he advised. "They're quite sensitive about the tree incident."

"Annabeth has a lot of sensitive topics."

"You can't blame her. She, well, her stepmother isn't the best."

I was pretty sure that Gabe was worse than whatever her stepmother ever did to her, but I didn't want any pity, and I didn't want anybody to think that I wasn't happy at home.

"Do you seriously have no idea?" Will asked. "Like, nothing strange has ever happened?"

"I think I do," I said slowly, "but I, too, hope that I'm wrong."

Everything was falling into place. The bathroom, the fountain, the ocean—what did they all have in common? But I still wasn't too sure.

"My mom knew," I murmured. "My dad would've told her. He loved her."

"I really hope so Jenny," Will sighed. "But even if I have my suspicions, I can't do anything about it. You have to be claimed. You father has to send a sign claiming you as his daughter. It happens sometimes."

I stilled at that word. "What do you mean, sometimes?"

"The gods are busy. They have a lot of kids and they don't always ... Well, sometimes they don't care about us, Jenny. They ignore us."

I thought about some of the kids I'd seen in the Hermes cabin, teenagers who looked sullen and depressed, as if they were waiting for a call that would never come. I'd known kids like that at Yancy Academy, shuffled off to boarding school by rich parents who didn't have the time to deal with them. But god's should behave better.

"Then what's the point of having kids if you don't even care about them?" I asked, growing angry. "I mean," I practically yelled the last words to the sky, "maybe it would be easier to keep it in your pants instead!"

Thunder boomed, and Will sucked in a breath through his teeth.

"Jenny," he said lowly, "that was probably the worst insult that anyone could ever insult the gods with. You have to give them some credit. They want to help their kids, but ancient laws restrict them from doing so."

"Or maybe it's just blatant favoritism! If they want to jump at any opportunity to help their kids, claiming them is a start. If that's one of the only things they can do, it's kinda hard to forget, right?"

Will looked at me in awe and fear. "I have never seen someone insult the gods lie that and live. But, well, nobody has ever dared to insult them like that, so, yeah."

"So I'm stuck here," I said, my anger receding. "That's it? For the rest of my life?"

"It depends," Will said, still looking up at the sky warily. "Some campers only stay the summer. If you're a child of Aphrodite or Demeter, you're probably not a real powerful force. The monsters might ignore you, so you can get by with a few months of summer training and live in the mortal world the rest of the year. But for some of us, it's too dangerous to leave. We're year-rounders. In the mortal world, we attract monsters. They sense us. They come to challenge us. Most of the time, they'll ignore us until we're old enough to cause trouble-about ten or eleven years old, but after that, most demigods either make their way here, or they get killed off. A few manage to survive in the outside world and become famous. Believe me, if I told you the names, you'd know them. Some don't even realize they're demigods. But very, very few are like that."

"So monsters can't get in here?"

Will shook her head. "Not unless they're intentionally stocked in the woods or specially summoned by somebody on the inside."

"Why would anybody want to summon a monster?"

"Practice fights. Practical jokes."

"Practical jokes?"

"My first reaction as well. Anyways, the borders are sealed to keep mortals and monsters out. From the outside, mortals look into the valley and see nothing unusual, just a strawberry farm."

"So ... I'm guessing you're a year rounder if you haven't seen you mom in four years?"

Will nodded. From under the collar of his T-shirt he pulled a leather necklace with four clay beads of different colors. It was just like Luke's, except Will's had one less bead, and also had a pendent on it—a small diamond. I decided not to question it.

"I've been here since I was eight, as I already told you," he said. "Every August, on the last day of summer session, you get a bead for surviving another year. I've been here longer than most of the counselors, and they're all in college, except for Luke and Annabeth, of course."

"Oh." I stood there for a minute in uncomfortable silence. "So ... I could just walk out of here right now if I wanted to?"

"It would be suicide, but you could, with Mr. D's or Chiron's permission. But they wouldn't give permission until the end of the summer session unless ..."

"Unless?"

"You were granted a quest. But that hardly ever happens. The last time ..."

His voice trailed off. I could tell from his tone that the last time hadn't gone well.

"Back in the sick room," I said, "when you were feeding me that stuff—"

"That reminds me!" he cried, slapping a hand to his forehead. "I brought you here for further inspection, but I totally forgot! Is there any pain? Dizzyness? Nausea? Does it hurt when I poke here, or here, or here, or—"

"Will," I said loudly, grabbing his hand. "I can't answer you fast enough."

"Fair enough." He sighed, letting his hands fall, before his head snapped up again, looking at me excitedly.

"You've been out of camp until now, right? Is there anything you know about the summer solstice?"

"The... what? I'm so confused."

"Annabeth has been bugging me about it since, well, forever. I don't think I can take much more of it. Maybe, if you knew something, and I could tell her, it might get her off my case for a while."

"Well... not much. Back at my old school, I overheard Grover and Chiron talking about it. Grover mentioned the summer solstice. He said something like we didn't have much time, because of the deadline. That's everything I know."

Will frowned, leaning forward. "I'm kind of worried, too. Chiron and the satyrs, they know, but they won't tell me. Something is wrong in Olympus, something pretty major. Last time I was there, everything seemed so normal."

"You've been to Olympus?"

"Some of us year-rounders—Luke and Clarisse and I and a few others—we took a field trip during winter solstice. That's when the gods have their big annual council."

"But... how did you get there?"

"The Long Island Railroad, of course. You get off at Penn Station. Empire State Building, special elevator to the six hundredth floor."

"I... thought that there were only a hundred and two floors in the Empire State Building," I said in confusion.

He laughed. "I did say special elevator to the six hundredth floor."

"Right. Continue."

"Right after we visited, the weather got weird, as if the gods had started fighting. A couple of times since, I've overheard satyrs talking. The best I can figure out is that something important was stolen. And if it isn't returned by summer solstice, there's going to be trouble. When you came, Annabeth was hoping ... I mean—Athena can get along with just about anybody, except for Ares. And of course she's got the rivalry with Poseidon. But she thought that you two could work together. She thought you might've know something."

I shook my head. I wished I could help him, but I felt too hungry and tired and mentally overloaded to ask any more questions.

"Annabeth wants a quest more than anything," he explained, "but everybody thinks she too young. Personally, I think the freedom would be quite nice too, but," he shrugged, "I don't think I'm going to be able to experience it."

I could smell barbecue smoke coming from somewhere nearby. Will must've heard my stomach growl. He told me to go on, he'd catch me later. I left him on the pier, tracing his finger across the rail as if drawing a battle plan.

Back at cabin eleven, everybody was talking and horsing around, waiting for dinner. For the first time, I noticed that a lot of the campers had similar features: sharp noses, upturned eyebrows, mischievous smiles. They were the kind of kids that teachers would peg as troublemakers. Thankfully, nobody paid much attention to me as I walked over to my spot on the floor and plopped down with my minotaur horn.

The counselor, Luke, came over. He had the Hermes family resemblance, too. It was marred by that scar on his right cheek, but his smile was intact.

"Found you a sleeping bag," he said. "And here, I stole you some toiletries from the camp store."

I couldn't tell if he was kidding about the stealing part.

I said, "Thanks."

"No prob." Luke sat next to me, pushed his back against the wall. "Tough first day?"

"I don't belong here," I said. "I don't... I was just told my father was a god. I don't even believe in gods, to be honest."

"Yeah," he said. "That's how we all started. When you actually start believe though? It doesn't get any easier."

The bitterness in his voice surprised me, because Luke seemed like a pretty easy going guy. He looked like he could handle just about anything.

"So your dad is Hermes?" I asked.

He pulled a switchblade out of his back pocket, and for a second I thought he was going to gut me, but he just scraped the mud off the sole of his sandal. "Yeah. Hermes."

"The wing-footed messenger guy."

"That's him. Messengers. Medicine. Travelers, merchants, thieves. Anybody who uses the roads. That's why you're here, enjoying cabin eleven's hospitality. Hermes isn't picky about who he sponsors."

I figured Luke didn't mean to call me a nobody. He just had a lot on his mind.

"You ever meet your dad?" I asked.

"Once."

I waited, thinking that if he wanted to tell me, he'd tell me. Apparently, he didn't. I wondered if the story had anything to do with how he got his scar.

Luke looked up and managed a smile. "Don't worry about it, Jenny. The campers here, they're mostly good people. After all, we're extended family, right? We take care of each other."

He seemed to understand how lost I felt, and I was grateful for that, because an older guy like him—even if he was a counselor—should've steered clear of an uncool middle-schooler like me. But Luke had welcomed me into the cabin. He'd even stolen me some toiletries, which was the nicest thing anybody had done for me all day, except for maybe Will's kindness.

I decided to ask him my last big question, the one that had been bothering me all afternoon. "Clarisse, from Ares, was joking about me being 'Big Three' material. Then Annabeth said I might be 'the one.' She said I should talk to the Oracle. What was that all about?"

Luke folded his knife. "I hate prophecies."

"What do you mean?"

His face twitched around the scar. "Let's just say I messed things up for everybody else. The last two years, ever since my trip to the Garden of the Hesperides went sour, Chiron hasn't allowed any more quests. Annabeth's been dying to get out into the world. She pestered Chiron so much he finally told her he already knew her fate. He'd had a prophecy from the Oracle. He wouldn't tell her the whole thing, but he said Annabeth wasn't destined to go on a quest yet. She had to wait until... somebody special came to the camp."

"That's what Will told me, but he never mention the... somebody special part."

"Don't worry about it, kid," Luke said. "Annabeth wants to think every new camper who comes through here is the omen she's been waiting for. Now, come on, it's dinnertime."

The moment he said it, a horn blew in the distance. Somehow, I knew it was a conch shell, even though I'd never heard one before.

Luke yelled, "Eleven, fall in!"

The whole cabin, about twenty of us, filed into the commons yard. We lined up in order of seniority, so of course I was dead last. Campers came from the other cabins, too, except for the three empty cabins at the end, and cabin eight, which had looked normal in the daytime, but was now starting to glow silver as the sun went down.

We marched up the hill to the mess hall pavilion. Satyrs joined us from the meadow. Naiads emerged from the canoeing lake. A few other girls came out of the woods- and when I say out of the woods, I mean straight out of the woods. I saw one girl, about nine or ten years old, melt from the side of a maple tree and come skipping up the hill.

In all, there were maybe a hundred campers, a few dozen satyrs, and a dozen assorted wood nymphs and naiads.

At the pavilion, torches blazed around the marble columns. A central fire burned in a bronze brazier the size of a bathtub. Each cabin had its own table, covered in white cloth trimmed in purple. Four of the tables were empty, but cabin eleven's was way overcrowded. I had to squeeze on to the edge of a bench with half my butt hanging off.

I saw Grover sitting at table twelve with Mr. D, a few satyrs, and a couple of plump blond boys who looked just like Mr. D. Chiron stood to one side, the picnic table being way too small for a centaur.

Will sat at table seven with a bunch of blonde kids, some wearing lab coats, others with empty quivers slung over their backs, and some just had medical equipment hanging from their belts. I hopes it wasn't because they brought it in case someone died from dinner. I don't know what I would do if there was an incident before where someone died from eating. Then not a single place here would be safe.

Annabeth sat at table six with a bunch of serious-looking athletic kids, all with her gray eyes and honey blonde hair.

Clarisse sat behind me at Ares's table. She'd apparently gotten over being hosed down, because she was laughing and belching right alongside her friends.

Finally, Chiron pounded his hoof against the marble floor of the pavilion, and everybody fell silent. He raised a glass. "To the gods!"

Everybody else raised their glasses. "To the gods!"

Wood nymphs came forward with platters of food: grapes, apples, strawberries, cheese, fresh bread, and yes, barbecue! My glass was empty, but Luke said, "Speak to it. Whatever you want-nonalcoholic, of course."

I said, "Cherry Coke."

The glass filled with sparkling caramel liquid.

Then I had an idea. "Blue Cherry Coke."

The soda turned a violent shade of cobalt.

I took a cautious sip. Perfect.

I drank a toast to my mother.

She's not gone, I told myself. Not permanently, anyway. She's in the Underworld. And if that's a real place, then someday...

"Here you go, Jenny," Luke said, handing me a platter of smoked brisket.

I loaded my plate and was about to take a big bite when I noticed everybody getting up, carrying their plates toward the fire in the center of the pavilion. I wondered if they were going for dessert or something.

"Come on," Luke told me.

As I got closer, I saw that everyone was taking a portion of their meal and dropping it into the fire, the ripest strawberry, the juiciest slice of beef, the warmest, most buttery roll.

Luke murmured in my ear, "Burnt offerings for the gods. They like the smell."

"You're kidding."

His look warned me not to take this lightly, but I couldn't help wondering why an immortal, all-powerful being would like the smell of burning food.

Luke approached the fire, bowed his head, and tossed in a cluster of fat red grapes. "Hermes."

I was next.

I wished I knew what god's name to say.

I had a clue as to who I was suppose to day, but I didn't dare voice my thoughts out loud. Maybe I was wrong, but I would rather the other kids believe I'm undetermined than think I was a big-head who wanted an all-powerful father.

Finally, I made a silent plea. _Whoever you are, tell me. Please._

I scraped a big slice of brisket into the flames.

When I caught a whiff of the smoke, I didn't gag, to my surprise.

It smelled nothing like burning food. It smelled of hot chocolate and fresh-baked brownies, hamburgers on the grill and wildflowers, and a hundred other good things that shouldn't have gone well together, but did. I could almost believe the gods could live off that smoke.

After thinking about it, I tossed in an apple for Hermes in thanks for letting me stay in his cabin.

Everybody returned to their seats and began eating their meals, me happily digging in as I had a whole three days, including today's, worth of food to make up.

"Aren't you eating a little too much?" Travis Stoll asked warily.

His brother Connor nodded.

I had learned that they weren't twins, but, at this point, they looked so similar that it didn't matter anyways. Travis was just taller than Connor, and both had taken an immediate liking to me after they found out I had doused Clarisse in toilet water. They told me that I was their hero. When I found out about their last names, I had cracked up, making a joke about them being the sons of Hermes and having the last name Stoll, but they just looked at me blankly, and, sighing, as I knew that explaining would take out all of the humor, I waved off possibly the best joke I've ever come up with in my life.

"I was out for two-and-a-half-days, Travis, Connor. I need to make it up. Calories might equal carbs, but, seriously, at this point, I don't care. That's Future Jenny's problem if she can't run away from a horde of monsters."

Connor looked a like he was about to smash my plate on the floor, but decided against it and turned so he was facing his plate again.

After everybody had finished their meals, Chiron pounded his hoof again for our attention.

Mr. D got up with a huge sigh. "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all you brats. Well, hello. Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A bunch of ugly cheering rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Mr. D continued, "I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Jean Johnson."

Chiron murmured something.

"Er, Jenny Jackson," Mr. D corrected. "That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire. Go on."

Everybody cheered. We all headed down toward the amphitheater, where Apollo's cabin led a singalong. We sang camp songs about the gods and ate s'mores and joked around, and the funny thing was, I didn't feel that anyone was staring at me anymore. I felt that I was home.

Later in the evening, when the sparks from the campfire were curling into a starry sky, the conch horn blew again, and we all filed back to our cabins. I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I collapsed on my borrowed sleeping bag.

My fingers curled around the Minotaur's horn. I thought about my mom, but I had good thoughts: her smile, the bedtime stories she would read me when I was a kid, the way she would tell me not to let the bedbugs bite.

When I closed my eyes, I fell asleep instantly.

That was my first day at Camp Half-Blood.

I wish I'd known how briefly I would get to enjoy my new home.

* * *

 **I must love you guys or something to be updating again so quickly. That, and also the fact that I had more planned for this chapter than the last. And also that this is Thanksgiving break for me, and I'm going to do my best to get another two chapters up. Hey, you guys and I might get insanely lucky and and I'll manage to update everyday.**

 **As to the person who told me that Jenny has too many of Percy's lines... I don't know how to answer that. Do you mean that I took too many lines from the book? I did** **mention I got lazy. Or did you mean that she's too much like Percy? She... is Percy. It's a fem!Percy fan fiction. Please, if I didn't answer your question well enough, ask again.**

 **Thank you guys so much for the review! Yeah, being lazy isn't exactly amazing, but I really wanted to stick in chapter six.**

 **As for the Will suggestion, I'm planning on it, but they're not that great friends yet. It's going to happen, most definitely, sometime in the later chapters, but wouldn't it be weird to you if like, someone you met that day just slung an arm around you? I'm building up to that moment though.**

 **If there's anything you guys want added in the books, just tell me! I'll do my best. If you guys couldn't tell, the quest is going to be Jenny, Grover, and Will, but the scene at the waterpark is going to be hard to write out. If you guys have any suggestions as to what I should make Will afraid of, or even not afraid at all, please, tell me! I love having more time to plan stuff out.**

 **Do you guys like Jenny? She's kinda a reflection of myself, except that I would never have a godly father, or go to Camp Half-Blood, and I'm glad. I wouldn't have to worry about dying before reaching the age of adulthood. I know she's not exactly like Percy, so if she's too dislikable, please tell me. I don't want to write a horrible person.**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**

 **P.S. WE'RE ALMOST AT 2,000 VIEWS GUYS! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! EVEN TO THOSE HATERS!**


	8. We Capture A Flag

**CHAPTER EIGHT  
**

 **We Capture a Flag**

 **I don't own Percy Jackson**

* * *

The next few days I settled into a routine that felt almost normal, if you don't count the fact that I was getting lessons from satyrs, nymphs, and a centaur.

Each morning I took Ancient Greek from Annabeth, and we talked about the gods and goddesses in the present tense, which was kind of weird. I discovered Annabeth was right about my dyslexia: Ancient Greek wasn't that hard for me to read. At least, no harder than English. So still kinda hard, but not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. After a few mornings, I could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much of a headache. Take that, dyslexia!

The rest of the day, I'd rotate through outdoor activities, looking for something I was good at, which was, mind you, almost impossible. Will had tried to teach me archery, but we found out pretty quick I wasn't any good with a bow and arrow. He didn't complain, even when he had to send a couple of kids up to the infirmary with arrows sticking out of their butts.

Foot racing? No good either. It wasn't as terrible as when I was trying archery, but the nymph-instructors still beat me. They told me not to worry about it. They'd had centuries of practice running away from lovesick gods. But still, it was a little humiliating to be slower than a tree.

And wrestling? Forget it. Every time I got on the mat, Clarisse would pulverize me.

"There's more where that came from, punk," she'd mumble in my ear.

The only thing I really excelled at was canoeing, and that wasn't the kind of heroic skill people expected to see from the kid who had beaten the Minotaur.

I knew the senior campers and counselors were watching me, trying to decide who my dad was, but they weren't having an easy time of it. I wasn't as strong as the Ares kids, or as good at archery as the Apollo kids. I didn't have Hephaestus's skill with metalwork or—gods forbid—Dionysus's way with vine plants. Luke told me I might be a child of Hermes, a kind of jack-of-all-trades, master of none. But I got the feeling he was just trying to make me feel better. He really didn't know what to make of me either.

Despite all that, I liked camp. I got used to the morning fog over the beach, the smell of hot strawberry fields in the afternoon, even the weird noises of monsters in the woods at night. I would eat dinner with cabin eleven, scrape part of my meal into the fire, and try to feel some connection to my real dad. Nothing came. Just that warm feeling I'd always had, like the memory of his smile. I tried not to think too much about my mom, but I kept wondering: if gods and monsters were real, if all this magical stuff was possible, surely there was some way to save her, to bring her back...

I started to understand Luke's bitterness and how he seemed to resent his father, Hermes. So okay, maybe gods had important things to do. But couldn't they call once in a while, or thunder, or something? Dionysus could make Diet Coke appear out of thin air. Why couldn't my dad, whoever he was, make a phone appear?

Thursday afternoon, three days after I'd arrived at Camp Half-Blood, I had my first sword-fighting lesson. Everybody from cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke would be our instructor.

We started with basic stabbing and slashing, using some straw-stuffed dummies in Greek armor. I guess I did okay. At least, I understood what I was supposed to do and my reflexes were good.

The problem was, I couldn't find a blade that felt right in my hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tried his best to fix me up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for me.

We moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would be my partner, since this was my first time.

"Good luck," one of the campers told me. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

"Maybe he'll go easy on me," I said.

The camper snorted.

Luke showed me thrusts and parries and shield blocks the hard way. With every swipe, I got a little more battered and bruised. "Keep your guard up, Jenny," he'd say, then whap me in the ribs with the flat of his blade. "No, not that far up!" Whap! "Lunge!" Whap! "Now, back!" Whap!

By the time he called a break, I was soaked in sweat. Everybody swarmed the drinks cooler. Luke poured ice water on his head, which looked like such a good idea, I did the same.

Instantly, I felt better. Strength surged back into my arms. The sword didn't feel so awkward.

"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Jenny doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."

Great, I thought. Let's all watch Jenny get pounded.

The Hermes guys gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. I figured they'd been in my shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag. He told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Jenny, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of my hand.

"Now in real time," he said, after I'd retrieved my weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Jenny?"

I nodded, and Luke came after me. Somehow, I kept him from getting a shot at the hilt of my sword. My senses opened up. I saw his attacks coming. I countered. I stepped forward and tried a thrust of my own. Luke deflected it easily, but I saw a change in his face. His eyes narrowed, and he started to press me with more force.

The sword grew heavy in my hand. The balance wasn't right. I knew it was only a matter of seconds before Luke took me down, so I figured, What the heck?

I tried the disarming maneuver.

My blade hit the base of Luke's and I twisted, putting my whole weight into a downward thrust.

Clang.

Luke's sword rattled against the stones. The tip of my blade was an inch from his undefended chest.

The other campers were silent.

I lowered my sword. "Um, sorry."

For a moment, Luke was too stunned to speak.

"Sorry?" His scarred face broke into a grin. "By the gods, Jenny, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

I didn't want to. The short burst of manic energy had completely abandoned me. But Luke insisted.

This time, there was no contest. The moment our swords connected, Luke hit my hilt and sent my weapon skidding across the floor.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

Luke wiped the sweat off his brow. He appraised at me with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what Jenny could do with a balanced sword... ."

Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Grover at the lake, resting from a near-death experience on the climbing wall. Grover had scampered to the top like a mountain goat, but the lava had almost gotten me. My shirt had smoking holes in it. The hairs had been singed off my forearms.

We sat on the pier, watching the naiads do underwater basket-weaving, until I got up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation had gone with Mr. D.

His face turned a sickly shade of yellow, and I had to resist the urge to go back and punch Mr. D, even if he was an all-powerful god.

"Fine," he said. "Just great."

"So your career's still on track?"

He glanced at me nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"Well... no." I had no idea what a searcher's license was, but it didn't seem like the right time to ask. "He just said you had big plans, you know ... and that you needed credit for completing a keeper's assignment. So did you get it?"

Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

My spirits lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along?"

"Of course I'd want you along!" I snapped. "You're literally my best friend, Grover. I mean, if I were to go on a incredibly important journey, I think you'd know me best and keep me from dying."

Grover looked a bit better, but he still stared glumly into the water. "Basket-weaving ... Must be nice to have a useful skill."

I tried to reassure him that he had lots of talents, while doing my best contain myself from punching Mr. D, but that just made him look more miserable. We talked about canoeing and swordplay for a while, then debated the pros and cons of the different gods. Finally, I asked him about the four empty cabins.

"Number eight, the silver one, belongs to Artemis," he said. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad."

"Yeah, okay." I nodded, as it made sense. "But the other three, the ones at the end. Are those the Big Three?"

Grover tensed. We were getting close to a touchy subject. "No. One of them, number two, is—"

"Hera's," I finished, remembering what I had said on my tour with Chiron.

He nodded. "That's another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job. When we say the Big Three, we mean the three powerful brothers, the sons of Kronos."

"Zeus, Poseidon, Hades."

"Right. You know. After the great battle with the Titans, they took over the world from their dad and drew lots to decide who got what."

"Zeus got the sky," I remembered. "Poseidon the sea, Hades the Underworld."

"Uh-huh."

"But Hades doesn't have a cabin here. Why? Isn't he like, super-powerful?"

"No. He doesn't have a throne on Olympus, either. He sort of does his own thing down in the Underworld. If he did have a cabin here ..." Grover shuddered. "Well, it wouldn't be pleasant. Let's leave it at that."

I was a bit miffed at how everybody treated Hades, but I couldn't do anything about it, so I instead asked, "But Zeus and Poseidon—they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. "About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed.

I said, "That's the most serious oath you can make."

I had no idea how I knew that. But I could just feel it. An oath that serious... I would hate to see the consequences of that broken promise.

Grover nodded.

"And the brothers kept their word—no kids?"

Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo—he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia .. . well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."

"But that isn't fair. It wasn't the little girl's fault."

Grover hesitated. "Jenny, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where I'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

I stared at the pine in the distance.

The story made me feel hollow, and guilty too. A girl my age had sacrificed herself to save her friends. She had faced a whole army of monsters. Next to that, my victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much. I wondered, if I'd acted differently, could I have saved my mother?

"Grover," I said, "have heroes really gone on quests to the Underworld?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Orpheus. Hercules. Houdini."

"And have they ever returned somebody from the dead?"

"No. Never. Orpheus came close... Jenny, you're not seriously thinking—"

"No," I lied. "I was just wondering. So ... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Grover studied me warily. I hadn't persuaded him that I'd really dropped the Underworld idea. "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."

Grover looked as if I'd just led him into a trap. "I didn't... Oh, listen, don't think like that. If you were-you know-you'd never ever be allowed a quest, and I'd never get my license. You're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"

"Grover, Nemesis is a goddess, and I have a mom."

His ears turned pink, and I suddenly felt bad. I got the idea he was reassuring himself more than me.

That night after dinner, there was a lot more excitement than usual.

At last, it was time for capture the flag.

When the plates were cleared away, the conch horn sounded and we all stood at our tables.

Campers yelled and cheered as Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavilion carrying a silk banner. It was about ten feet long, glistening gray, with a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree. From the opposite side of the pavilion, Clarisse and her buddies ran in with another banner, of identical size, but gaudy red, painted with a bloody spear and a boar's head.

I turned to Luke and yelled over the noise, "Those are the flags?"

"Yeah."

"Ares and Athena always lead the teams?"

"Not always," he said. "But often."

"So, if another cabin captures one, what do you do—repaint the flag?"

He grinned. "You'll see. First we have to get one."

"Whose side are we on?"

He gave me a sly look, as if he knew something I didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help."

The teams were announced. Athena had made an alliance with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. Apparently, privileges had been traded—shower times, chore schedules, the best slots for activities—in order to win support. I was glad to know that I was going to be on the same team as Will. I had never seen the other Apollo kids in combat, but seeing Will's skill with the bow, when he was trying to teach me archery, made me a bit nervous to have him as my enemy.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else: Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. From what I'd seen, Dionysus's kids were actually good athletes, but there were only two of them. Demeter's kids had the edge with nature skills and outdoor stuff but they weren't very aggressive. Aphrodite's sons and daughters I wasn't too worried about. They mostly sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and did their hair and gossiped. Of course, there was Silena Beauregard, who would lead a couple of her siblings in battle, and she might be a problem. Hephaestus's kids weren't pretty, and there were only four of them, but they were big and burly from working in the metal shop all day. They might be a problem. That, of course, left Ares's cabin: a dozen of the biggest, ugliest, meanest kids on Long Island, or anywhere else on the planet.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble.

"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhide shields coated in metal.

"Whoa," I said. "We're really supposed to use these?"

Luke looked at me as if I were crazy. "Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—Chiron thought these would fit. You'll be on border patrol."

My shield was the size of an NBA backboard, with a big caduceus in the middle. It weighed about a million pounds. I could have snowboarded on it fine, but I hoped nobody seriously expected me to run fast. My helmet, like all the helmets on Athena's side, had a blue horsehair plume on top. Ares and their allies had red plumes.

Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"

We cheered and shook our swords and followed her down the path to the south woods. The red team yelled taunts at us as they headed off toward the north.

I managed to catch up with Annabeth without tripping over my equipment. "Hey."

She kept marching.

"So what's the plan?" I asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"

Her hand drifted toward her pocket, as if she were afraid I'd stolen something.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares."

She pushed ahead, leaving me in the dust.

"Okay," I mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team."

It was a warm, sticky night. The woods were dark, with fireflies popping in and out of view. I managed to catch Will, who was near the end of the crowd, laughing with his siblings. A bit embarrassed, I asked him where I was supposed to be. He knit his eyebrows.

"Did Annabeth not give you a position?"

I shook my head, color tinting my cheeks.

"What about Luke?"

"Border patrol, whatever that means."

"Oh. come on."

Will brought me next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, then he and the rest of the team scattered into the trees. As soon as they left, I dropped the shield on the ground, the metal pulling at my wrist.

Standing there alone, with my big blue-feathered helmet and my huge shield, I felt like an idiot. The bronze sword, like all the swords I'd tried so far, seemed balanced wrong. The leather grip pulled on my hand like a bowling ball. It was so heavy I could barely lift it.

There was no way anybody would actually attack me, would they? I mean, Olympus had to have liability issues, right?

Far away, the conch horn blew. I heard whoops and yells in the woods, the clanking of metal, kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past me like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

Great, I thought. I'll miss all the fun, as usual.

Then I heard a sound that sent a chill up my spine, a low canine growl, somewhere close by.

I grabbed my shield and raised it instinctively; I had the feeling something was stalking me.

Then the growling stopped. I felt the presence retreating.

On the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded. Five Ares warriors came yelling and screaming out of the dark.

"Cream the punk!" Clarisse screamed.

Her ugly pig eyes glared through the slits of her helmet. She brandished a five-foot-long spear, its barbed metal tip flickering with red light. Her siblings had only the standard-issue bronze swords—not that that made me feel any better. But the presence... No matter how evil the Ares cabin was, with Clarisse at the lead, they couldn't have caused that feeling. If I had a couple of seconds, I would've remembered about my battle reflexes, but the Ares kids gave me no time.

They charged across the stream. There was no help in sight. I could run. Or I could defend myself against half the Ares cabin.

I managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but these guys were not as stupid the Minotaur. They surrounded me, and Clarisse thrust at me with her spear. My shield deflected the point, but I felt a painful tingling all over my body. My hair stood on end. My shield arm went numb, and the air burned.

Electricity. Her stupid spear was electric. I fell back.

Another Ares guy slammed me in the chest with the butt of his sword and I hit the dirt.

They could've kicked me into jelly, but they were too busy laughing.

"Give her a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab her hair."

I managed to get to my feet. I raised my sword, but Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear as sparks flew. Now both my arms felt numb.

"Oh, wow," Clarisse said. "I'm scared of this girl. Really scared."

"The flag is that way," I told her. I wanted to sound angry, but I was afraid it didn't come out that way.

"Yeah," one of her siblings said. "But see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a girl who made our cabin look stupid."

"You do that without my help," I told them. It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.

Two of them came at me. I backed up toward the creek, tried to raise my shield, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck me straight in the ribs. If I hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, I would've been shish-kebabbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked my teeth out of my mouth. One of her cabinmates slashed his sword across my arm, leaving a good-size cut.

Seeing my own blood made me dizzy—warm and cold at the same time.

"No maiming," I managed to say.

"Oops," the guy said. "Guess I lost my dessert privilege.

He pushed me into the creek and I landed with a splash. They all laughed. I figured as soon as they were through being amused, I would die. But then something happened. The water seemed to wake up my senses, as if I'd just had a bag of my mom's double-espresso jelly beans.

Clarisse and her cabinmates came into the creek to get me, but I stood to meet them. I knew what to do. It was like I suddenly had the talents of an experienced warrior. I swung the flat of my sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. I hit him so hard I could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water.

Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three came at me. I slammed one in the face with my shield and used my sword to shear off the other guy's horsehair plume. Both of them backed up quick. Ugly Number Four didn't look really anxious to attack, but Clarisse kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy. As soon as she thrust, I caught the shaft between the edge of my shield and my sword, and I snapped it like a twig.

"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

She probably would've said worse, but I smacked her between the eyes with my sword-butt and sent her stumbling backward out of the creek.

Then I heard yelling, elated screams, and I saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. I could see Will nocking arrow after arrow at almost the speed of light. The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse.

"A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."

They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke ran across into friendly territory. Our side exploded into cheers. The red banner shimmered and turned to silver. The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and started carrying him around on their shoulders. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn.

The game was over. We'd won.

I was about to join the celebration when Annabeth's voice, right next to me in the creek, said, "Not bad, hero."

I looked, but she wasn't there.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" she asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

I felt myself getting angry. I wasn't even fazed by the fact that she'd just been invisible. "You set me up," I said. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."

Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."

"A plan to get me pulverized."

"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but ..." She shrugged. "You didn't need help."

Then she noticed my wounded arm. "How did you do that?"

"Sword cut," I snapped. "What do you think?"

I was still a little miffed she hadn't helped me.

"No. It was a sword cut. Look at it."

The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As I watched, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.

"I—I don't get it," I said.

Annabeth was thinking hard. I could almost see the gears turning. She looked down at my feet, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and said, "Step out of the water, Jenny."

"What—"

"Just do it."

I came out of the creek and immediately felt bone tired. My arms started to go numb again. My adrenaline rush left me. I almost fell over, but Annabeth steadied me.

"Oh, Styx," she cursed. "This is not good. I didn't want ... I assumed it would be Zeus... ."

Before I could ask what she meant, and, at the same time, pushing down my dread, I heard that canine growl again, but much closer than before. A howl ripped through the forest.

The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which I would realize, only later, I had understood perfectly: "Stand ready! My bow!"

Annabeth drew her sword.

There on the rocks just above us was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers.

It was looking straight at me.

Nobody moved except Annabeth and Will, who yelled, at the same time, "Jenny, run!"

She tried to step in front of me, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her—an enormous shadow with teeth—and just as it hit me, as I stumbled backward and felt its razor-sharp claws ripping through my armor, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like forty pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hounds neck sprouted a cluster of arrows. The monster fell dead at my feet.

By some miracle, I was still alive. I didn't want to look underneath the ruins of my shredded armor. My chest felt warm and wet, and I knew I was badly cut. Another second, and the monster would've turned me into a hundred pounds of delicatessen meat.

Chiron trotted up next to us, a bow in his hand, his face grim. Will ran up behind him, his bow also drawn, the half-dozen arrows I saw remaining in his quiver gone.

"Di immortales!" Will said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't ... they're not supposed to ..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."

Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Clarisse yelled, "It's all Jenny's fault! Jenny summoned it!"

"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.

We watched the body of the hellhound melt into shadow, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.

"You're wounded," Annabeth told me. "Quick, Jenny, get in the water."

"I'm okay."

"No, you're not," she said. "Chiron, watch this."

"Annabeth!" Lee Fletcher, one of the Apollo kids, snapped. "She needs to get to the infirmary, _now_."

"Lee," Will said slowly, "I think she needs to get into the water."

Lee might've opened his mouth to protest, but I was too tired to argue. I stepped back into the creek, the whole camp gathering around me.

Instantly, I felt better. I could feel the cuts on my chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.

"Look, I—I don't know why," I said, trying to apologize. Biggest lie of the century, but I was trying to deny it. "I'm sorry..."

But they weren't watching my wounds heal. They were staring at something above my head.

"Jenny," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um ..."

I didn't even need to look up as I smiled weakly. "Dear old daddy has decided to claim me now, right?"

Will could only nod.

By the time I looked up, the sign was already fading, but I could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.

"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is really not good."

"It is determined," Chiron announced.

All around me, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.

"Poseidon," I said softly. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses."

Chiron said, "Hail, Genevieve Jackson, daughter of the Sea God."

* * *

 **WASSUP MY FELLOW READERS! Honestly, I didn't even really change anything this chapter. And yes, Jenny did know that Poseidon was her dear old daddy, but she didn't mention it to anybody, because, like I mentioned at one point, she didn't want to look like a big-head for wanting an all-powerful father. I feel like I just couldn't let Jenny not know, ya know? I mean, she's smart, like Percy, so I thought that she might just be able to connect the dots. Also, MERLINS LEFT SAGGY PANTS WE'VE REACHED 2,000 VIEWS! Honestly, I don't know what to say. This was just a hobby, but, at the point, you guys are amazing. Also, I'm glad that you guys like Jenny. Next time guys! Which is probably going to be this week, so keep an eye out!**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**

 **P.S. Also, for some weird reason, words with "-" in the middle of them have found their way into this story. For example, you might see the word doctor, but it's going to be written as doc-tor. Like, what the heck. I'm sorry if that happens. All you guys gotta do is tell me, and I'll fix it right away! Thanks!**


	9. I Am Offered A Quest

**CHAPTER NINE**

 **I Am Offered A Quest**

 **I don't own Percy Jackson.**

* * *

The next morning, Chiron moved me to cabin three.

I didn't have to share with anybody. I had plenty of room for all my stuff: the Minotaur's horn, one set of spare clothes, and a toiletry bag. I got to sit at my own dinner table, pick all my own activities, call "lights out" whenever I felt like it, and not listen to anybody else.

And I was absolutely miserable.

Just when I'd started to feel accepted, to feel I had a home in cabin eleven and I might be a normal kid—or as normal as you can be when you're a half-blood—I'd been separated out as if I had some rare disease.

Nobody mentioned the hellhound, but I got the feeling they were all talking about it behind my back. The attack had scared everybody. It sent two messages: one, that I was the daughter of the Sea God; and two, monsters would stop at nothing to kill me. They could even invade a camp that had always been considered safe.

The other campers steered clear of me as much as possible. Cabin eleven was too nervous to have sword class with me after what I'd done to the Ares folks in the woods, so my lessons with Luke became one-on-one. He pushed me harder than ever, and wasn't afraid to bruise me up in the process.

"You're going to need all the training you can get," he promised, as we were working with swords and flaming torches. "Now let's try that viper-beheading strike again. Fifty more repetitions."

Annabeth still taught me Greek in the mornings, but she seemed distracted. Every time I said something, she scowled at me, as if I'd just poked her between the eyes.

After lessons, she would walk away muttering to herself: "Quest ... Poseidon? ... Dirty rotten ... Got to make a plan ..."

Even Clarisse kept her distance, though her venomous looks made it clear she wanted to kill me for breaking her magic spear. I wished she would just yell or punch me or something. I'd rather get into fights every day than be ignored.

Only Will treated me like I was a human, but even he seemed to need to be to other places more often. He would hurry away after a few minutes of conversation, always saying he needed to go to the infirmary, leaving me staring after him bitterly.

I knew somebody at camp resented me, because one night I came into my cabin and found a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article took me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I got, the more the words floated around on the page.

GIRL AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER

FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

BY EILEEN SMYTHE

Sally Jackson and daughter Jenny are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.

Mother and daughter had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.

Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepdaughter, Jenny Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.

Police would not say whether daughter Jenny is a suspect in his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson and Jenny. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free crime-stoppers hotline.

The phone number was circled in black marker.

I wadded up the paper and threw it away, then flopped down in my bunk bed in the middle of my empty cabin.

"Lights out," I told myself miserably.

That night, I had my worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back, until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.

I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.

Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!

The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.

I woke up, sure I was falling.

I was still in bed in cabin three. My body told me it was morning, but it was dark outside, and thunder rolled across the hills. A storm was brewing. I hadn't dreamed that.

I heard a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.

"Come in?"

Grover trotted inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see you."

"Why?"

"He wants to kill... I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

Nervously, I got dressed and followed, sure that I was in huge trouble.

For days, I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that I was declared a daughter of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figured it was a crime for me just to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating the best way to punish me for existing, and now Mr. D was ready to deliver their verdict. I felt anger burn in my stomach. It wasn't my fault. But there was nothing I could do about it.

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looked like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain was coming in our direction. I asked Grover if we needed an umbrella.

"No," he said. "It never rains here unless we want it to."

I pointed at the storm. "What the heck is that, then?"

He glanced uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."

I realized he was right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.

But this storm ... this one was huge.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin were playing a morning game against the satyrs. I didn't see Will, so I guess he must be at the "infirmary". Okay, I was still bitter. Sue me. Dionysus's twins were walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everybody was going about their normal business, but they looked tense. They kept their eyes on the storm.

Grover and I walked up to the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sat at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sat across the table in his fake wheelchair. They were playing against invisible opponents—two sets of cards hovering in the air.

"Well, well," Mr. D said without looking up. "Our little celebrity."

I waited.

"Come closer," Mr. D said. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortal, just because old Barnacle Beard is your father."

A net of lightning flashed across the clouds. Thunder shook the windows of the house.

"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus said.

Chiron feigned interest in his pinochle cards. Grover cowered by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.

"If I had my way," Dionysus said, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."

"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron put in.

"Nonsense," Dionysus said. "Girl wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."

"Mr. D—" Chiron warned.

"Oh, all right," Dionysus relented. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rose, and the invisible players' cards dropped to the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the girl is still here when I get back, I'll turn her into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Genevieve Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you must do."

Dionysus picked up a playing card, twisted it, and it became a plastic rectangle. A credit card? No. A security pass.

He snapped his fingers.

The air seemed to fold and bend around him. He became a hologram, then a wind, then he was gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.

Chiron smiled at me, but he looked tired and strained. "Sit, Jenny, please. And Grover."

We did.

Chiron laid his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.

"Tell me, Jenny," he said. "What did you make of the hellhound?"

Just hearing the name made me shudder.

Chiron probably wanted me to say, Heck, it was nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast. But I didn't feel like lying.

"It scared me," I said. "If you and... Will, hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."

"You'll meet worse, Jenny. Far worse, before you're done."

"Done ... with what?"

"Your quest, of course. Will you accept it?"

I glanced at Grover, who was crossing his fingers.

"Um, sir," I said, "you haven't told me what it is yet."

Chiron grimaced. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."

Thunder rumbled across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I could see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.

"Poseidon and Zeus," I said. "They're fighting over something valuable ... something that was stolen, aren't they?"

Chiron and Grover exchanged looks.

Chiron sat forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"

My face felt hot. I wished I hadn't opened my big mouth. "The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Will, and he said that Annabeth overheard something about a theft. And ... I've also been having these dreams."

"I knew it," Grover said.

"Hush, satyr," Chiron ordered.

"But it is her quest!" Grover's eyes were bright with excitement. "It must be!"

"Only the Oracle can determine." Chiron stroked his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, Jenny, you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."

I laughed nervously. "A what?"

"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warned. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."

"Oh."

"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron said, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."

"And it's missing?"

"Stolen," Chiron said.

"By who?"

"By whom," Chiron corrected. Once a teacher, always a teacher. "By you."

My mouth fell open.

"At least"—Chiron held up a hand—"that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon had an argument. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."

"But I didn't—"

"Patience and listen, child," Chiron said. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt, and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you as his daughter. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief."

"But I've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"

Chiron and Grover glanced nervously at the sky. The clouds didn't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They were rolling straight over our valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.

"Er, Jenny ...?" Grover said. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."

"Perhaps paranoid," Chiron suggested. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam..." He looked at me as if he actually expected me to remember question thirty-eight.

How could anyone accuse me of stealing a god's weapon? I couldn't even steal a slice of pizza from Gabe's poker party without getting busted. Chiron was waiting for an answer.

"Something about a golden net?" I guessed. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods ... they, like, trapped Zeus and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler, right?"

"Correct," Chiron said. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you've come along—the proverbial last straw."

"But I'm just a kid!"

"Jenny," Grover cut in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, that he's fathered a new mortal hero who might be used as a weapon against you... Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"

"But I didn't do anything. Poseidon—my dad—he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?"

Chiron sighed. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a full-fledged war would look like, Jenny?"

"Bad?" I guessed.

"Imagine the world in chaos. Nature at war with itself. Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight."

"Bad," I repeated.

"And you, Jenny Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."

It started to rain. Volleyball players stopped their game and stared in stunned silence at the sky.

I had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of me. I was furious.

"So I have to find the stupid bolt," I said. "And return it to Zeus."

"What better peace offering," Chiron said, "than to have the daughter of Poseidon return Zeus's property?"

"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?"

"I believe I know." Chiron's expression was grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago ... well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."

"Why can't you tell me where the bolt is beforehand?"

"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."

I swallowed. "Good reason."

"You agree then?"

I looked at Grover, who nodded encouragingly.

Easy for him. I was the one Zeus wanted to kill.

"All right," I said. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron said. "Go upstairs, Jenny Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."

Four flights up, the stairs ended under a green trap-door.

I pulled the cord. The door swung down, and a wooden ladder clattered into place.

The warm air from above smelled like mildew and rotten wood and something else ... a smell I remembered from biology class. Reptiles. The smell of snakes.

I held my breath and climbed.

The attic was filled with Greek hero junk: armor stands covered in cobwebs; once-bright shields pitted with rust; old leather steamer trunks plastered with stickers saying ITHAKA, CIRCE'S ISLE, and LAND OF THE AMAZONS. One long table was stacked with glass jars filled with pickled things—severed hairy claws, huge yellow eyes, various other parts of monsters. A dusty mounted trophy on the wall looked like a giant snake's head, but with horns and a full set of shark's teeth. The plaque read, HYDRA HEAD # , WOODSTOCK, N.Y., .

By the window, sitting on a wooden tripod stool, was the most gruesome memento of all: a mummy. Not the wrapped-in-cloth kind, but a human female body shriveled to a husk. She wore a tie-dyed sundress, lots of beaded necklaces, and a headband over long black hair. The skin of her face was thin and leathery over her skull, and her eyes were glassy white slits, as if the real eyes had been replaced by marbles; she'd been dead a long, long time.

Looking at her sent chills up my back. And that was before she sat up on her stool and opened her mouth. A green mist poured from the mummy's mouth, coiling over the floor in thick tendrils, hissing like twenty thousand snakes. I stumbled over myself trying to get to the trapdoor, but it slammed shut. Inside my head, I heard a voice, slithering into one ear and coiling around my brain: I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask.

I wanted to say, No thanks, wrong door, just looking for the bathroom. But I forced myself to take a deep breath.

The mummy wasn't alive. She was some kind of gruesome receptacle for something else, the power that was now swirling around me in the green mist. But its presence didn't feel evil, like my demonic math teacher Mrs. Dodds or the Minotaur. It felt more like the Three Fates I'd seen knitting the yarn outside the highway fruit stand: ancient, powerful, and definitely not human. But not particularly interested in killing me, either.

I got up the courage to ask, "What is my destiny?"

The mist swirled more thickly, collecting right in front of me and around the table with the pickled monster-part jars. Suddenly there were four men sitting around the table, playing cards. Their faces became clearer. It was Smelly Gabe and his buddies.

My fists clenched, though I knew this poker party couldn't be real. It was an illusion, made out of mist.

Gabe turned toward me and spoke in the rasping voice of the Oracle: You shall go west, and face the god who has turned.

His buddy on the right looked up and said in the same voice: You shall find what was stolen, and see it safely returned.

The guy on the left threw in two poker chips, then said: You shall be betrayed by one who calls you a friend.

Finally, Eddie, our building super, delivered the worst line of all: And you shall fail to save what matters most, in the end.

The figures began to dissolve. At first I was too stunned to say anything, but as the mist retreated, coiling into a huge green serpent and slithering back into the mouth of the mummy, I cried, "Wait! What do you mean? What friend? What will I fail to save?"

The tail of the mist snake disappeared into the mummy's mouth. She reclined back against the wall. Her mouth closed tight, as if it hadn't been open in a hundred years. The attic was silent again, abandoned, nothing but a room full of mementos.

I got the feeling that I could stand here until I had cobwebs, too, and I wouldn't learn anything else.

My audience with the Oracle was over.

"Well?" Chiron asked me.

I slumped into a chair at the pinochle table. "She said I would retrieve what was stolen."

Grover sat forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!"

"What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron pressed. "This is important."

My ears were still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She . .. she said I would go west and face a god who had turned. I would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."

"I knew it," Grover said.

Chiron didn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"

I didn't want to tell him.

What friend would betray me? I didn't have that many.

And the last line—I would fail to save what mattered most. What kind of Oracle would send me on a quest and tell me, Oh, by the way, you'll fail

How could I confess that?

"No," I said. "That's about it."

He studied my face. "Very well, Jenny. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."

I got the feeling he knew I was holding back something bad, and he was trying to make me feel better.

"Okay," I said, anxious to change topics. "So where do I go? Who's this god in the west?"

"Ah, think, Jenny," Chiron said. "If Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain?"

"Somebody else who wants to take over?" I guessed.

"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."

I thought about my dreams, the evil voice that had spoken from under the ground. "Hades."

Chiron nodded. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."

A scrap of aluminum dribbled out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh—what?"

"A Fury came after Jenny," Chiron reminded him. "She watched the young woman until she was sure of her identity, then tried to kill her. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."

"Yes, but—but Hades hates all heroes," Grover protested. "Especially if he has found out Jenny is a daughter of Poseidon... ."

"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continued. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Jenny to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill this young half-blood before she can take on the quest."

"Great," I muttered. "That's two major gods who want to kill me."

"But a quest to ..." Grover swallowed. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in some place like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."

"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Jenny must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."

A strange fire burned in my stomach. The weirdest thing was: it wasn't fear. It was anticipation. The desire for revenge. Hades had tried to kill me three times so far, with the Fury, the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It was his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he was trying to frame me and my dad for a theft we hadn't committed. I still didn't understand why they had kicked Hades to the curb, by not giving him a cabin, but the pity I had been feeling for him was long gone.

I was ready to take him on.

Besides, if my mother was in the Underworld ...

Whoa, girl, said the small part of my brain that was still sane. You're a kid. Hades is a god.

Grover was trembling. He'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.

The poor guy needed to complete a quest with me so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that was, but how could I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said I was destined to fail? This was suicide.

"Look, if we know it's Hades," I told Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus or Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."

"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron said. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades—and I imagine Poseidon does—they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"

"You're saying I'm being used."

"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon has claimed you now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs you."

My dad needs me.

Emotions rolled around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I didn't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me.

I looked at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's daughter all along, haven't you?"

"I had my suspicions. As I said ... I've spoken to the Oracle, too."

I got the feeling there was a lot he wasn't telling me about his prophecy, but I decided I couldn't worry about that right now. After all, I was holding back information too.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "I'm supposed go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."

"Check," Chiron said.

"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."

"Check."

"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."

"That's about right."

I looked at Grover, who gulped down the ace of hearts.

"Did I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asked weakly.

"You don't have to go," I told him. "I can't ask that of you.

"Oh ..." He shifted his hooves. "No ... it's just that satyrs and underground places ... well..."

He took a deep breath, then stood, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his T-shirt. "You saved my life, Jenny. If ... if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let you down."

I felt so relieved I wanted to cry, though I didn't think that would be very heroic. Grover was the only friend I'd ever had for longer than a few months. I wasn't sure what good a satyr could do against the forces of the dead, but I felt better knowing he'd be with me.

"All the way, G-man." I turned to Chiron. "So where do we go? The Oracle just said to go west."

"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."

"Where?"

Chiron looked surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."

"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane—"

"No!" Grover shrieked. "Jenny, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"

I shook my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.

"Jenny, think," Chiron said. "You are the daughter of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."

Overhead, lightning crackled. Thunder boomed.

"Okay," I said, determined not to look at the storm. "So, I'll travel overland."

"That's right," Chiron said. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered, if you will accept her help."

"Gee," I said, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a quest like this?"

The air shimmered behind Chiron.

Annabeth became visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest," she said. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."

I stared at her in shock.

"You're kidding, right?"

Annabeth frowned. "What?"

"You've treated me like trash ever since I got claimed," I snapped. "Give me one reason as to why I should let you along."

"Because... I'm the best person to keep you from messing up?" She stomped her foot in frustration. "I don't understand! Why would you let me come along?"

"I would rather not have someone who will insult me every few miles we go." I turned to Chiron. "I can deny her help, right?"

Chiron shifted his hooves nervously.

"My dear," he said, "let's not be rash about this. Annabeth... she is your best bet. You don't know if anybody else wants to come."

"Yeah," Annabeth said smugly. "I'm your best bet."

"I want Will."

Annabeth blinked. "Excuse me?"

"I want Will to be on this quest."

Annabeth huffed, facing Chiron. "She can't do that!"

Chiron sighed heavily. "Annabeth dear, I'm afraid she can. It's her quest, after all. Grover, will you go to the infirmary and get Will Solace?"

Grover glanced nervously between Annabeth and I before trotting off. I was a bit uncomfortable about the glares and the loathing glances she threw in my direction, but I shook it off. I was sure I was making the right decision.

Ten minutes had barely passed when Grover came back, with a very confused Will behind him. He was wearing a lab coat with rubber gloves, with a Stethoscope, I believe is what they were called, around his neck.

Will bowed when he saw Chiron, before asking curiously, "what's going on?"

"Jenny has been issued a, ah, quest," Chiron said, successfully ignoring Annabeth's sniffs of disdain. "She was wondering if you would like to accompany her on her journey."

Will stared at me in shock for so long I was a bit nervous about his answer.

"Of course you can refuse," I said hastily, "but I just remembered you said you wanted to go on a quest too, and I—"

"Are you kidding?" he said, his eyes glowing with excitement. "Of course! But Annabeth..."

His eyes trailed over to his angry friend.

"Well, I would rather have you on this quest," I said. "So are you in, hothead?"

He grinned. "Obviously, Seaweed Brain."

"A trio," I said. "That'll work."

"Excellent," Chiron said. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, I'm afraid, you're on your own."

Lightning flashed. Rain poured down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.

"No time to waste," Chiron said. "I think you should all get packing."

* * *

 **So guys, we've finally gotten to the juicy part! I love you guys all so much. As to AladdinlSane's question, she figured it out when Will asked her if she had any clue, because, well, she had to have been able to connect the dots. The weird "-" has still been happening, so, yeah, so sorry about that. Tell me if you guys see any. This is my second chapter that I've hit 6,000 words on, so I hope you guys like it! Okay, so I've always hated those kinds of writers, but I'm going to give you guys a little challenge. I'm at around 2,200 views on this story. Let's get to 2,400 for the next chapter. You guys are so amazing that it's probably not going to be very hard. If it gets to 2,400 views this week, I'll post this week, so please keep an eye out, I guess. I love you all again. Until next time!**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**


	10. I Ruin A Perfectly Good Bus

**CHAPTER TEN**

 **I RUIN A PERFECTLY** **GOOD BUS**

 **I don't own Percy Jackson**

* * *

It didn't take me long to pack. I decided to leave the Minotaur horn in my cabin, which left me only an extra change of clothes and a toothbrush to stuff in a backpack Grover had found for me.

The camp store loaned me one hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. These coins were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. The ancient mortal drachmas had been silver, Chiron told us, but Olympians never used less than pure gold. Chiron said the coins might come in handy for non-mortal transactions-whatever that meant. He gave Will and me each a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt. It was god food, Chiron reminded us. It would cure us of almost any injury, but it was lethal to mortals. Too much of it would make a half-blood very, very feverish. An overdose would burn us up, literally.

Will was bringing his magic bow, which he told me had been a twelfth-birthday present from his dad. I asked him what was so magical about it, and he explained that he didn't need to bring any arrows, because the moment he thought of an arrow while drawing the string back, it would appear. I asked him how he was going run with that thing, and, with a smile, he tapped it, saying, "Apollo!" and transformed into a wristwatch.

He told me his dad took the idea from a replica of Aegis, apparently. The replica belonged to Thalia Grace.

Annabeth made Will bring a book on famous classical architecture, written in Ancient Greek, to read, but I pretended that I didn't see him throw the thing as far as he could down the hill when she wasn't looking. I was whistling innocently when he turned back around. His eyes clearly said, _this does not leave this time period._ I gave him a thumbs up. She also gave him her invisibility Yankee's cap, under the threat that if he lost it, she would have his head on a stick and send it up to his dad. Needless to say, Will seemed terrified of loosing it, and I suggested sticking it in his backpack before he accidentally dropped it.

He also brought a short sword, about two feet long, that was shrinkable. Well, being friends with Hephaestus's kids sure did seem to prove to be good. Basically, all of the weapons that Will brought were magical.

Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore a green rasta-style cap, because when it rained his curly hair flattened and you could just see the tips of his horns. His bright orange backpack was full of scrap metal and apples to snack on. In his pocket was a set of reed pipes his daddy goat had carved for him, even though he only knew two songs: Mozart's Piano Concerto no. and Hilary Duff's "So Yesterday," both of which sounded pretty bad on reed pipes.

We waved good-bye to the other campers, took one last look at the strawberry fields, the ocean, and the Big House, then hiked up Half-Blood Hill to the tall pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus.

Chiron was waiting for us in his wheelchair. Next to him stood the surfer dude I'd seen when I was recovering in the sick room. According to Grover, the guy was the camp's head of security. He supposedly had eyes all over his body so he could never be surprised. Today, though, he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform, so I could only see extra peepers on his hands, face and neck.

"This is Argus," Chiron told me. "He will drive you into the city, and, er, well, keep an eye on things."

I heard footsteps behind us.

Luke came running up the hill, carrying a pair of bas-ketball shoes.

"Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."

I snickered to myself, knowing that if Annabeth were here, she would be blushing like crazy.

"Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. "And I thought ... um, maybe you could use these."

He handed me the sneakers, which looked pretty normal. They even smelled kind of normal. I promise you, I don't usually go around sniffing shoes, but this one was just... pretty close to my face.

Luke said, "Maia!"

White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling me so much, I dropped them. The shoes flapped around on the ground until the wings folded up and disappeared.

"Awesome!" Grover said.

Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days..." His expression turned sad.

I didn't know what to say. It was cool enough that Luke had come to say good-bye. I'd been afraid he might resent me for getting so much attention the last few days. But here he was giving me a magic gift... It made me blush almost as much as Annabeth.

"Hey, man," I said. "Thanks."

"Listen, Jenny ..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just ... kill some monsters for me, okay?"

We shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then ruffled Will's hair, who looked at me with barely contained annoyance, and I shrugged.

After Luke was gone, I asked him, "Why do you hate him so much?"

"I don't."

"Um, then what was that glare? But, sure, if you say so."

"Then I say no," he said seriously. Or siriusly. Ha. I love Harry Potter so much it's sad. "I'm gonna go down now, yeah? See you in a bit."

He made his way down the other side of the hill, where a white SUV waited on the shoulder of the road. Argus followed, jingling his car keys.

I picked up the flying shoes and had a sudden bad feeling. I looked at Chiron. "I won't be able to use these, will I?"

He shook his head. "Luke meant well, Jenny. But taking to the air ... that would not be wise for you."

I nodded, disappointed, but then I got an idea. "Hey, Grover. You want a magic item?"

His eyes lit up. "Me?"

Pretty soon we'd laced the sneakers over his fake feet, and the world's first flying goat boy was ready for launch.

"Maia!" he shouted.

He got off the ground okay, but then fell over sideways so his backpack dragged through the grass. The winged shoes kept bucking up and down like tiny broncos.

"Practice," Chiron called after him. "You just need practice!"

"Aaaaa!" Grover went flying sideways down the hill like a possessed lawn mower, heading toward the van.

Before I could follow, Chiron caught my arm. "I should have trained you better, Jenny," he said. "If only I had more time. Hercules, Jason—they all got more training."

"That's okay. I just wish—"

I stopped myself because I was about to sound like a brat. I was wishing my dad had given me a cool magic item to help on the quest, something as good as Luke's flying shoes, or Annabeth's invisibility cap, or Will's magic bow.

"What am I thinking?" Chiron cried. "I can't let you get away without this."

He pulled a pen from his coat pocket and handed it to me. It was an ordinary disposable ballpoint, black ink, removable cap. Probably cost thirty cents.

"Gee," I said. "Thanks."

"Jenny, that's a gift from your father. I've kept it for years, not knowing you were who I was waiting for. But the prophecy is clear to me now. You are the one."

I remembered the field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, when I'd vaporized Mrs. Dodds. Chiron had thrown me a pen that turned into a sword. Could this be ... ?

I took off the cap, and the pen grew longer and heavier in my hand. In half a second, I held a shimmering bronze sword with a double-edged blade, a leather-wrapped grip, and a flat hilt riveted with gold studs. It was the first weapon that actually felt balanced in my hand. I turned it over in my hand, admiring the blade.

"The sword has a long and tragic history that we need not go into," Chiron told me. "Its name is Anaklusmos."

"'Riptide,'" I translated, surprised the Ancient Greek came so easily.

"Use it only for emergencies," Chiron said, "and only against monsters. No hero should harm mortals unless absolutely necessary, of course, but this sword wouldn't harm them in any case."

I looked at the wickedly sharp blade. "What do you mean it wouldn't harm mortals? How could it not?"

"The sword is celestial bronze. Forged by the Cyclopes, tempered in the heart of Mount Etna, cooled in the River Lethe. It's deadly to monsters, to any creature from the Underworld, provided they don't kill you first. But the blade will pass through mortals like an illusion. They simply are not important enough for the blade to kill. And I should warn you: as a demigod, you can be killed by either celestial or normal weapons. You are twice as vulnerable."

"Good to know."

"Now recap the pen."

I touched the pen cap to the sword tip and instantly Riptide shrank to a ballpoint pen again. I suddenly frowned as I went to stick the pen in my pocket because I realized, women's jeans were made to hold a quarter and that was it. I wasn't sure if I could, but I concentrated on it, imagining a necklace. Not too fancy, but not exactly small, as I wanted to be able to hear it if it fell of in the middle of the street.

Chiron stared in amazement as it changed, turning from a pen into a necklace with a silver chain, with a Tanzanite pendant hanging from it.

I may have hated the Mortal Instruments series, but Isabelle Lightwood's necklace was amazing. I had modeled my necklace after hers, and I might ask one of the Hephaestus kids to replicate it, and make the gem pulse whenever theres monsters nearby. That would be cool.

"That..." Chiron admitted, "was interesting."

I was a bit nervous, because I was pretty sure it was gonna clink and my deaf ears wouldn't be able to detect it.

"You can't," Chiron said.

"Can't what?"

"Lose the pen," he said. " Er, necklace. It is enchanted. It will always reappear in your pocket. Try it."

I was wary, as I just got the thing, and I didn't want to lose it just in case Chiron messed up the details from the receipt, but I chucked the thing as far as I could down the hill and watched it disappear in the grass.

"It may take a few moments," Chiron told me.

Sure enough, I could feel its foreign weight against my throat.

"Okay, that's extremely cool," I admitted. "But what if a mortal sees me pulling out a sword?"

Chiron smiled. "Mist is a powerful thing, Jenny."

"Mist?"

"Yes. Read The Iliad. It's full of references to the stuff. Whenever divine or monstrous elements mix with the mor-tal world, they generate Mist, which obscures the vision of humans. You will see things just as they are, being a half-blood, but humans will interpret things quite differently. Remarkable, really, the lengths to which humans will go to fit things into their version of reality."

Then I asked slowly, "if Riptide changed into a sword after I took off the cap, how will it change when it's in necklace form?"

Chiron considered the question, before he said thoughtfully, "try ripping it off your neck. Ah, ripping sounds a bit harsh, but for a lack of a better word, let's leave it at that. Try it."

I really didn't want my new necklace to break, but I grabbed the pendant and yanked the necklace off my throat. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt at all, and changed into the sword I had seen five minutes before. Then another problem arose. But I didn't want to trouble Chiron, so I decided to test it out myself. I touched the hilt of the sword to the base of my throat, and immediately, it turned back into the necklace.

For the first time, the quest felt real. I was actually leaving Half-Blood Hill. I was heading west with no adult supervision, no backup plan, not even a cell phone. (Chiron said cell phones were traceable by monsters; if we used one, it would be worse than sending up a flare.) I had no weapon stronger than a sword to fight off monsters and reach the Land of the Dead.

"Chiron ..." I said. "When you say the gods are immortal... I mean, there was a time before them, right?"

"Four ages before them, actually. The Time of the Titans was the Fourth Age, sometimes called the Golden Age, which is definitely a misnomer. This, the time of Western civilization and the rule of Zeus, is the Fifth Age."

"So what was it like ... before the gods?"

Chiron pursed his lips. "Even I am not old enough to remember that, child, but I know it was a time of darkness and savagery for mortals. Kronos, the lord of the Titans, called his reign the Golden Age because men lived innocent and free of all knowledge. But that was mere propaganda. The Titan king cared nothing for your kind except as appetizers or a source of cheap entertainment. It was only in the early reign of Lord Zeus, when Prometheus the good Titan brought fire to mankind, that your species began to progress, and even then Prometheus was branded a radical thinker. Zeus punished him severely, as you may recall. Of course, eventually the gods warmed to humans, and Western civilization was born."

"But the gods can't die now, right? I mean, as long as Western civilization is alive, they're alive. So ... even if I failed, nothing could happen so bad it would mess up everything, right?"

Chiron gave me a melancholy smile. "No one knows how long the Age of the West will last, Jenny. The gods are immortal, yes. But then, so were the Titans. They still exist, locked away in their various prisons, forced to endure endless pain and punishment, reduced in power, but still very much alive. May the Fates forbid that the gods should ever suffer such a doom, or that we should ever return to the darkness and chaos of the past. All we can do, child, is follow our destiny."

"Our destiny ... assuming we know what that is."

"Relax," Chiron told me. "Keep a clear head. And remember, you may be about to prevent the biggest war in human history."

"Relax," I said. "I'm very relaxed."

When I got to the bottom of the hill, I looked back. Under the pine tree that used to be Thalia, daughter of Zeus, Chiron was now standing in full horse-man form, holding his bow high in salute. Just your typical summer-camp send-off by your typical centaur.

Argus drove us out of the countryside and into western Long Island. It felt weird to be on a highway again, Will and Grover sitting next to me as if we were normal carpoolers. After two weeks at Half-Blood Hill, the real world seemed like a fantasy. I found myself staring at every McDonald's, every kid in the back of his parents' car, every billboard and shopping mall.

"So far so good," I told Will. "Ten miles and not a single monster."

Will laughed. "It's bad luck to talk that way, Seaweed Brain. You better find some wood to knock."

"Remind me again why do you hate me so much?"

"I don't hate you."

"Could've fooled me."

He knit his eyebrows in curiosity. "No, I actually don't know what I did to make you think I hated you."

"Oh really?" I asked sarcastically. "So you don't remember all of those times you had to run to the infirmary whenever we were talking? Of all those times, when you were walking with Annabeth, you two seemed to avoid all eye contact with me?"

Will sighed. "The first thing was all your fault."

I raised an eyebrow. "Are you serious?"

He raised his own, almost challenging me.

"You're the daughter of one of the Big Three, Jenny. You attracted more monsters than normal, so of course hours in the infirmary was going to go up," he pointed out in a "duh" tone. "As for the second one, Annabeth kinda hates you, and she made me avoid you. Trust me, I wasn't a happy camper, pun not intended."

"Why?" I asked curiously. "And besides, it's no pun intended. Not pun not intended."

He made a face at me, which I snorted at, but said, "Why what, Seaweed Brain?"

"Why does Annabeth hate me?"

"She believes that Poseidon and Athena aren't suppose to get along," he explained.

"Uh, why?"

He straightened, and, with an enormous grin on his face, said in a surprisingly passing imitation of Annabeth's voice, "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."

"They must really like olives," I joked.

Will snickered.

"Now, if she'd invented pizza—that I could understand."

"You and me both," Will agreed.

In the front seat, Argus smiled. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me.

Traffic slowed us down in Queens. By the time we got into Manhattan it was sunset and starting to rain.

Argus dropped us at the Greyhound Station on the Upper East Side, not far from my mom and Gabe's apart-ment. Taped to a mailbox was a soggy flyer with my picture on it: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL?

I ripped it down before Will and Grover could notice.

Argus unloaded our bags, made sure we got our bus tickets, then drove away, the eye on the back of his hand opening to watch us as he pulled out of the parking lot.

I thought about how close I was to my old apartment. On a normal day, my mom would be home from the candy store by now. Smelly Gabe was probably up there right now, playing poker, not even missing her.

Grover shouldered his backpack. He gazed down the street in the direction I was looking. "You want to know why she married him, Jenny?"

I stared at him. "Were you reading my mind or something?"

"Just your emotions." He shrugged. "Guess I forgot to tell you satyrs can do that. You were thinking about your mom and your stepdad, right?"

I nodded, wondering what else Grover might've forgotten to tell me.

"Your mom married Gabe for you," Grover told me. "You call him 'Smelly,' but you've got no idea. The guy has this aura... Yuck. I can smell him from here. I can smell traces of him on you, and you haven't been near him for a week."

"Thanks," I said. "Where's the nearest shower?"

"You should be grateful, Jenny. Your stepfather smells so repulsively human he could mask the presence of any demigod. As soon as I took a whiff inside his Camaro, I knew: Gabe has been covering your scent for years. If you hadn't lived with him every summer, you probably would've been found by monsters a long time ago. Your mom stayed with him to protect you. She was a smart lady. She must've loved you a lot to put up with that guy-if that makes you feel any better."

It didn't, but I forced myself not to show it. I'll see her again, I thought. She isn't gone.

I wondered if Grover could still read my emotions, mixed up as they were. I was glad he and Will were with me, but I felt guilty that I hadn't been straight with them. I hadn't told them the real reason I'd said yes to this crazy quest.

The truth was, I didn't care about retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt, or saving the world, or even helping my father out of trouble. The more I thought about it, I resented Poseidon for never visiting me, never helping my mom, never even sending a lousy child-support check. He'd only claimed me because he needed a job done.

All I cared about was my mom. Hades had taken her unfairly, and Hades was going to give her back.

You will be betrayed by one who calls you a friend, the Oracle whispered in my mind. You will fail to save what matters most in the end.

Shut up, I told it.

The rain kept coming down.

We got restless waiting for the bus and decided to play some Hacky Sack with one of Grover's apples. Will was unbelievable. He could bounce the apple off his knee, his elbow, his shoulder, whatever. He told us that it was because Luke made him train that way. I wasn't too bad myself.

The game ended when I tossed the apple toward Grover and it got too close to his mouth. In one mega goat bite, our Hacky Sack disappeared-core, stem, and all.

Grover blushed. He tried to apologize, but Will and I were too busy cracking up.

Finally the bus came. As we stood in line to board, Grover started looking around, sniffing the air like he smelled his favorite school cafeteria delicacy-enchiladas.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."

But I could tell it wasn't nothing. I started looking over my shoulder, too.

I was relieved when we finally got on board and found seats together in the back of the bus. We stowed our backpacks. Well, actually, that wasn't true. I refused to let go of mine, because my gut was telling me that something was wrong, and I somehow knew we needed to make a hasty escape. Will kept tapping his wristwatch nervously. At least he wasn't muttering his dad's name too.

As the last passengers got on, Will clamped his hand onto my knee. "Jenny."

An old lady had just boarded the bus. She wore a crum-pled velvet dress, lace gloves, and a shapeless orange-knit hat that shadowed her face, and she carried a big paisley purse. When she tilted her head up, her black eyes glittered, and my heart skipped a beat.

It was Mrs. Dodds. Older, more withered, but definitely the same evil face.

I scrunched down in my seat.

Behind her came two more old ladies: one in a green hat, one in a purple hat. Otherwise they looked exactly like Mrs. Dodds—same gnarled hands, paisley handbags, wrinkled velvet dresses. Triplet demon grandmothers.

They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.

The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan. "She didn't stay dead long," I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."

"I said if you're lucky," Will whispered. "You're obviously not. But honestly, why am I surprised?"

"All three of them," Grover whimpered. "Di immortales!"

"It's okay," Will said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."

"I thought you said to not use names," I hissed as Grover moaned at the same time, "They don't open."

"A back exit?" he suggested.

There wasn't one. Even if there had been, it wouldn't have helped. By that time, we were on Ninth Avenue, heading for the Lincoln Tunnel.

"They won't attack us with witnesses around," I said. "Will they?"

"Mortals don't have good eyes," Will reminded me. "Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."

"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?"

He thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof ... ?"

We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.

Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the restroom."

"So do I," said the second sister.

"So do I," said the third sister.

"They need to control their bladder," I muttered under my breath.

They all started coming down the aisle.

"I've got it," Will said. "Jenny, take Annabeth's hat."

"Will, you do know that she's gonna kill me and you when she finds out, right?"

"Are you seriously concerned about that right now? You need to get your priorities straight. You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."

"Philosopher's Stone, by Ron Weasley, Midnight Duel. But you guys—"

"There's an outside chance they might not notice us," Will said, smiling slightly when I recited exactly where that reference came from. "You're a daughter of one of the Big Three. Your smell might be overpowering."

"I can't just leave you."

"Don't worry about us," Grover said. "Go!"

My hands trembled. I felt like a coward, but I took the Yankees cap and put it on.

When I looked down, my body wasn't there anymore.

I started creeping up the aisle. I managed to get up ten rows, then duck into an empty seat just as the Furies walked past.

Mrs. Dodds stopped, sniffing, and looked straight at me. My heart was pounding.

Apparently she didn't see anything. She and her sisters kept going.

I was free. I made it to the front of the bus. We were almost through the Lincoln Tunnel now. I was about to press the emergency stop button when I heard hideous wailing from the back row.

The old ladies were not old ladies anymore. Their faces were still the same—I guess those couldn't get any uglier—but their bodies had shriveled into leathery brown hag bodies with bat's wings and hands and feet like gargoyle claws. Their handbags had turned into fiery whips.

The Furies surrounded Grover and Will, lashing their whips, hissing: "Where is it? Where?"

The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw something, all right.

But what made me hesitate is that they were saying _it_. Whatever. That wasn't important. Never did I think the day would come when I would actually take first-year Ron's advice.

"She's not here!" Will yelled. "She's gone!"

The Furies raised their whips.

Will drew his short sword. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it.

What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should've been named ADHD poster child of the year.

The bus driver was distracted, trying to see what was going on in his rearview mirror.

Still invisible, I grabbed the wheel from him and jerked it to the left. Everybody howled as they were thrown to the right, and I heard what I hoped was the sound of three Furies smashing against the windows.

"Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey—whoa!"

We wrestled for the wheel. The bus slammed against the side of the tunnel, grinding metal, throwing sparks a mile behind us.

We careened out of the Lincoln Tunnel and back into the rainstorm, people and monsters tossed around the bus, cars plowed aside like bowling pins.

Somehow the driver found an exit. We shot off the highway, through half a dozen traffic lights, and ended up barreling down one of those New Jersey rural roads where you can't believe there's so much nothing right across the river from New York. There were woods to our left, the Hudson River to our right, and the driver seemed to be veering toward the river.

Another great idea: I hit the emergency brake.

The bus wailed, spun a full circle on the wet asphalt, and crashed into the trees. The emergency lights came on. The door flew open. The bus driver was the first one out, the passengers yelling as they stampeded after him. I stepped into the driver's seat and let them pass.

The Furies regained their balance. They lashed their whips at Will while he waved his sword and yelled in Ancient Greek, telling them to back off. Grover threw tin cans.

I looked at the open doorway. I was free to go, but I couldn't leave my friends. I took off the invisible cap. "Hey!"

The Furies turned, baring their yellow fangs at me, and the exit suddenly seemed like an excellent idea. Mrs. Dodds stalked up the aisle, just as she used to do in class, about to deliver my F- math test. F- didn't even exist. I should've known she was a monster. Every time she flicked her whip, red flames danced along the barbed leather.

Her two ugly sisters hopped on top of the seats on either side of her and crawled toward me like huge nasty lizards.

"Genevieve Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said, in an accent that was definitely from somewhere farther south than Georgia. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."

"I liked you better as a math teacher," I told her.

She growled.

Will and Grover moved up behind the Furies cautiously, looking for an opening.

I yanked the necklace from my throat, keeping my eyes on the monsters. Riptide elongated into a shimmering double-edged sword.

The Furies hesitated.

Mrs. Dodds had felt Riptide's blade before. She obviously didn't like seeing it again.

"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."

"Nice try," I told her.

"Jenny, look out!" Will cried.

Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around my sword hand while the Furies on the either side lunged at me.

My hand felt like it was wrapped in molten lead, but I managed not to drop Riptide. I stuck the Fury on the left with its hilt, sending her toppling backward into a seat. I turned and sliced the Fury on the right. As soon as the blade connected with her neck, she screamed and exploded into dust.

I was still carrying my backpack, and it was starting to annoy me.

Will got Mrs. Dodds in a wrestler's hold and yanked her backward while Grover ripped the whip out of her hands.

"Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"

The Fury I'd hilt-slammed came at me again, talons ready, but I swung Riptide and she broke open like a piñata.

Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Will off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Will held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds's legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.

"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"

"Braccas meas vescimini!" I yelled.

I wasn't sure where the Latin came from. I think it meant "Eat my pants!" or something along the lines of that.

Thunder shook the bus. The hair rose on the back of my neck. Hell, not just the back of my neck. Even on my arms.

"Get out!" Will yelled at me. "Now!" I didn't need any encouragement.

We rushed outside and found the other passengers wandering around in a daze, arguing with the driver, or running around in circles yelling, "We're going to die!" A Hawaiian-shirted tourist with a camera snapped my photograph before I could touch my sword to my throat.

"Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our—"

BOOOOOM!

The windows of the bus exploded as the passengers ran for cover. Lightning shredded a huge crater in the roof, but an angry wail from inside told me Mrs. Dodds was not yet dead.

"Run!" Will said. "She's calling for reinforce-ments! We have to get out of here!"

We plunged into the woods as the rain poured down, the bus in flames behind us, and nothing but darkness ahead.

* * *

 **Guys... help... I don't know what I'm suppose to do for the next chapter. I mean, I need a** **legitimate reason as to why Will won't kill Medusa... I mean, I suppose that I can say that he's an archer, but I already established that he's pretty good at sword-fighting actually... help.**

 **Also a lot of things happen because of Annabeth, like Percy killing Medusa, or going on the Arch, or, as I mentioned before, the spider stuff. Also, how am i going to get them past Cerberus?! I thought that this was a good idea, but seriously, I'm starting to regret that. But I guess this can be some sort of brain exercise or something. Lmao.**

 **Moving on to other news, thanks for all the views! I've gotten over eight-hundred views in a single month, and maybe I might post on December 1st, or November second, if we can hit 1,000 views by the end of this month! If we do, I'll work extra hard, but keep in mind, finals are going to kill me.**

 **Thank you guys so much for supporting me, and I hope you guys had fun reading!**

 **I have something special planned for the next chapter :) but the Will thing is still going to bother me. I might just find a way around it, but you guys are more than welcome to help with ideas!**

 **~usernames**


	11. We Visit the Garden Gnome Emporium

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

 **WE VISIT THE GARDEN** **GNOME EMPORIUM**

 **I don't own Percy Jackson or else I would be rich, but I'm not**

* * *

In a way, it's nice to know there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some divine force really is trying to mess up your day.

So there we were, Will and Grover and I, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind us, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in our noses.

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

I was pretty much in shock myself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in my ears. But Will kept pulling us along, saying: "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."

"I'm the only one who decided to bring their pack," I reminded him. "My supplies can't last forever. Besides, you guys can't fit into my clothes. All of your food and clothes are gone. Everything."

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans ... a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

Will said quietly, "Look, I appreciate you coming back for us. That was really brave of you."

We sloshed across mushy ground, through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry.

"We're a team, right?"

He was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died ... aside from the fact that I would be devastated one of my best friends died, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind us, leaving us in almost total darkness. I couldn't see anything of Will except a glint of his blond hair.

"You never mentioned how much you wanted to leave," I murmured. "You only talked of Annabeth's longing to see the outside world."

"Then why didn't you take her?" he asked, a tinge of desperation in his voice. I didn't understand why it was there.

"Because I heard it in your voice, the day I woke up," I said. "How much desperation was in your voice. How much you wanted to leave."

He was quiet.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were eight, right?" I asked him.

"Yeah. I've only been on short field trips. My mom—"

"You never told me about her."

He sighed.

"I don't really talk about her because it makes me feel sad, but her name is Naomi Solace. My dad met her because he participated in one of her music classes. Why the god of music wanted to take lessons is beyond me. She's an amazing mom, but—" he paused, and I had a feeling he was scared of the next sentence, "then she married this awful guy."

My stomach churned. I had my fair share of experiences with awful guys.

"He was always telling her that we needed more money, and was always pressuring her to get more jobs or something, and she wanted to make him happy, so she was always out, and became a workaholic. She was never home, and my step-father used that time to beat me and blame me for all of his misfortunes. He would also throw parties when she was out, and would gamble away the money that my mom earned. He never earned a cent. That's why I don't talk about my life at home. It's because its a nightmare."

"I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home." He was rushing his words out now, as if he were afraid somebody might try to stop him. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're any good or not."

If I didn't know better, I could've sworn I heard doubt in his voice.

"You're pretty good with that sword," I said.

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."

I couldn'treally see, but I thought he might've smiled.

"You know," he said, "maybe I should tell you ... Something funny back on the bus ..."

Whatever he wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods!"

He puffed out a few notes, but the tune still sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.

Instead of finding a path, I immediately slammed into a tree and got a nice-size knot on my head.

Add to the list of superpowers I did not have: infrared vision.

After tripping and cursing and generally feelingmiserable for another mile or so, I started to see light up ahead: the colors of a neon sign. I could smell food. Fried, greasy, excellent food. I realized I hadn't eaten anything unhealthy since I'd arrived at Half-Blood Hill, where we lived on grapes, bread, cheese, and extra-lean-cut nymph-prepared barbecue. This girl needed a double cheeseburger.

We kept walking until I saw a deserted two-lane road through the trees. On the other side was a closeddown gas station, a tattered billboard for a movie, and one open business, which was the source of the neon light and the good smell.

It wasn't a fast-food restaurant like I'd hoped. It was one of those weird roadside curio shops that sell lawn flamingos and wooden Indians and cement grizzly bears and stuff like that. The main building was a long, low warehouse, surrounded by acres of statuary. The neon sign above the gate was impossible for me to read, because if there's anything worse for mydyslexia than regular English, it's red cursive neon English.

To me, it looked like: ATNYU MES GDERAN GOMEN MEPROUIM.

"What the heck does that say?" I asked

"I don't know," Will said.

He hanged around Annabeth, who loved reading so much, I'd forgotten he was dyslexic, too.

Grover translated: "Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium."

Flanking the entrance, as advertised, were two cement garden gnomes, ugly bearded little runts, smiling and wav-ing, as if they were about to get their picture taken.

I crossed the street, following the smell of the ham-burgers.

"Hey ..." Grover warned.

"The lights are on inside," Will said. "Maybe it's open."

"Snack bar," I said wistfully.

"Snack bar," he agreed.

"Are you two crazy?" Grover said. "This place is weird."

We ignored him.

The front lot was a forest of statues: cement animals, cement children, even a cement satyr playing the pipes, which gave Grover the creeps.

"Bla-ha-ha!" he bleated. "Looks like my Uncle Ferdinand!"

We stopped at the warehouse door.

"Don't knock," Grover pleaded. "I smell monsters."

"Your nose is clogged up from the Furies," Will told him. "All I smell is burgers. Aren't you hungry?"

"Meat!" he said scornfully. "I'm a vegetarian."

"You eat cheese enchiladas and aluminum cans," I reminded him.

"Those are vegetables. Come on. Let's leave. These statues are ... looking at me."

Will and I simultaneously snorted at that. Then the door creaked open, and standing in front of us was a tall Middle Eastern woman—at least, I assumed she was Middle Eastern, because she wore a long black gown that covered everything but her hands, and her head was completely veiled. Her eyes glinted behind a curtain of black gauze, but that was about all I could make out. Her coffee-colored hands looked old, but well-manicured and elegant, so I imagined she was a grandmother who had once been a beautiful lady.

Her accent sounded vaguely Middle Eastern, too. She said, "Children, it is too late to be out all alone. Where are your parents?"

"They're ... um ..." Will started to say.

"We're orphans," I said.

"Orphans?" the woman said. The word sounded alien in her mouth. "But, my dears! Surely not!"

"We got separated from our caravan," I said. "Our circus caravan. The ringmaster told us to meet him at the gas station if we got lost, but he may have forgotten, or maybe he meant a different gas station. Anyway, we're lost. Is that food I smell?"

"Oh, my dears," the woman said. "You must come in, poor children. I am Aunty Em. Go straight through to the back of the warehouse, please. There is a dining area."

We thanked her and went inside.

Will muttered to me, "Circus caravan?"

"Always have a strategy, right?"

"Your head is full of kelp."

The warehouse was filled with more statues-people in all different poses, wearing all different outfits and with dif-ferent expressions on their faces. I was thinking you'd have to have a pretty huge garden to fit even one of these statues, because they were all life-size. But mostly, I was thinking about food.

Go ahead, call me an idiot for walking into a strange lady's shop like that just because I was hungry, but I do impulsive stuff sometimes. Plus, you've never smelled Aunty Em's burgers. The aroma was like laughing gas in the dentist's chair—it made everything else go away. I barely noticed Grover's nervous whimpers, or the way the statues' eyes seemed to follow me, or the fact that Aunty Em had locked the door behind us.

All I cared about was finding the dining area. And sure enough, there it was at the back of the warehouse, a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. Everything you could want, plus a few steel picnic tables out front.

"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.

"Awesome," I said.

"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."

Before I could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice orphans."

"Thank you, ma'am," Will said.

"Quite all right, Will," she said. "You have such beautiful blue eyes, child." Only later did I wonder how she knew Will's name, even though we had never introduced ourselves.

Our hostess disappeared behind the snack counter and started cooking. Before we knew it, she'd brought us plastic trays heaped with double cheeseburgers, vanilla shakes, and XXL servings of French fries.

I was halfway through my burger before I remembered to breathe.

Will slurped his shake.

Grover picked at the fries, and eyed the tray's waxed paper liner as if he might go for that, but he still looked too nervous to eat.

"What's that hissing noise?" he asked.

I listened, but didn't hear anything. Will shook his head, but suddenly furrowed his eyebrows, as if he was concentrating on something important. He cocked his head slightly, still frowning.

"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."

"I take vitamins. For my ears."

"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."

Aunty Em ate nothing. She hadn't taken off her headdress, even to cook, and now she sat forward and interlaced her fingers and watched us eat. It was a little unsettling, having someone stare at me when I couldn't see her face, but I was feeling satisfied after the burger, and a little sleepy, and I figured the least I could do was try to make small talk with our hostess.

"So, you sell gnomes," I said, trying to sound interested.

"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."

"A lot of business on this road?"

"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."

My neck tingled, as if somebody else was looking at me. I turned, but it was just a statue of a young girl holding an Easter basket. The detail was incredible, much better than you see in most garden statues. But something was wrong with her face. It looked as if she were startled, or even ter-rified.

"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."

"You make these statues yourself?" I asked.

"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep and so real that I couldn't help feeling sorry for her.

Will had stopped eating. He sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"

"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Will, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."

I wasn't sure what she meant, but I felt bad for her. My eyelids kept getting heavier, my full stomach making me sleepy. Poor old lady. Who would want to hurt somebody so nice?

"Jenny?" Will was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go. I mean, the ringmaster will be wait-ing."

He sounded tense. I wasn't sure why. Grover was eating the waxed paper off the tray now, but if Aunty Em found that strange, she didn't say anything. My gut was telling me something was wrong, but my brain refused to believe it. After all, it felt nice. Maybe a little too nice...

"Such beautiful blue eyes," Aunty Em told Will again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen blue eyes like those."

She reached out as if to stroke Will's cheek, but Will stood up abruptly.

"We really should go."

"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "The ringmaster is waiting! Right!"

I didn't want to leave. I felt full and content. Aunty Em was so nice. I wanted to stay with her a while. But something in me was fighting against my desire to sleep. My brain became a little less fuzzy.

"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"

"A pose?" Will asked warily.

"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves chil-dren."

Will shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Jenny—"

I was still fighting that feeling. Something stirred in the back of my brain, almost whispering, _two sisters_ — _Aunty "M"—long ago—hissing._ But no matter how much I reached for it, I couldn't remember, so I just decided that I must be hearing things.

"Sure we can," I said cautiously, not wanting to be rude to an old lady who'd just fed us for free. I didn't want Aunty Em, if she was a monster, to know that we were onto her. "It's just a photo, Will. What's the harm?"

"Yes, Will," the woman purred. "No harm."

I could tell Will didn't like it, but he allowed Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues.

Aunty Em directed us to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."

"Not much light for a photo," I remarked.

"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"

"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.

Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"

Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."

"Grover," Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."

She still had no camera in her hands.

"Jenny—" Will said.

I was fighting the sleepy feeling, the comfortable lull that came from the food and the old lady's voice.

"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..."

"Jenny, something's wrong," Will insisted.

"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"

"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.

"Look away from her!" Will shouted. He whipped Annabeth's Yankees cap onto his head and vanished. His invisible hands pushed Grover and me both off the bench.

I was on the ground, looking at Aunt Em's sandaled feet.

I could hear Grover scrambling off in one direction, Will in another. But I was too dazed to move.

Then I heard a strange, rasping sound above me. My eyes rose to Aunty Em's hands, which had turned gnarled and warty, with sharp bronze talons for fingernails.

I almost looked higher, but somewhere off to my left Will screamed, "No! Don't!"

More rasping—the sound of tiny snakes, right above me, from ... from about where Aunty Em's head would be.

"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.

I couldn't move. I stared at Aunty Em's gnarled claws, and tried to fight the groggy trance the old woman had put me in.

"Such a pity to destroy a beautiful young face," she told me soothingly. "Stay with me, Jenny. All you have to do is look up."

I fought the urge to obey. Instead I looked to one side and saw one of those glass spheres people put in gardens- a gazing ball. I could see Aunty Em's dark reflection in the orange glass; her headdress was gone, revealing her face as a shimmering pale circle. Her hair was moving, writhing like serpents.

Aunty Em.

Aunty "M."

How could I have been so stupid?

Think, I told myself. How did Medusa die in the myth?

But I couldn't think. Something told me that in the myth Medusa had been asleep when she was attacked by one of the greatest heroes, Perseus. She wasn't anywhere near asleep now. If she wanted, she could take those talons right now and rake open my face.

"The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Jenny," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice invited me to look up, to sympathize with a poor old grandmother. "The cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."

"Don't listen to her!" Will's voice shouted, somewhere in the statuary. "Run, Jenny!"

"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "I have no use for your friends, and they I hold no soft spot for them. I shall crush their statues to death, but dear Jenny, you need not suffer."

"No," I muttered. I tried to make my legs move.

"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Jenny? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."

"Jenny!" Behind me, I heard a buzzing sound, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck!"

I turned, and there he was in the night sky, flying in from twelve o'clock with his winged shoes fluttering, Grover, holding a tree branch the size of a baseball bat. His eyes were shut tight, his head twitched from side to side. He was navigating by ears and nose alone.

"Duck!" he yelled again. "I'll get her!"

That finally jolted me into action. Knowing Grover, I was sure he'd miss Medusa and nail me. I dove to one side.

Thwack!

At first I figured it was the sound of Grover hitting a tree. Then Medusa roared with rage.

"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"

"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back.

I scrambled away and hid in the statuary while Grover swooped down for another pass.

Ker-whack!

"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spit-ting.

Right next to me, Will's voice said, "Jenny!"

I jumped so high my feet nearly cleared a garden gnome. "Jeez! Don't do that!"

Will took off Annabeth's Yankees cap and became visible. "I'll take care of her, okay? I know you aren't confident enough, no offense. Just... help Grover distract her."

"What? Are you crazy? Let's get out of here."

"Medusa is a menace. She's evil." Will sucked in a breath through his teeth. "But we've got to do this."

"What? I can't-"

"Look, do you want her turning more innocent people into statues?"

He pointed to a pair of statue lovers, a man and a woman with their arms around each other, turned to stone by the monster.

Will grabbed a green gazing ball from a nearby pedestal. "A polished shield would be better." He studied the sphere critically. "The convexity will cause some distor-tion. The reflection's size should be off by a factor of—my gods, I'm starting to sound like Annabeth."

He unsheathed his short sword, motioning for me to follow him.

"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"

"Roooaaarrr!"

"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch.

"We've got to hurry," Will told me. "Grover's got a great nose, but he'll eventually crash."

I yanked the necklace from my throat. The bronze blade of Riptide elongated in my hand.

I followed the hissing and spitting sounds of Medusa's hair.

I kept my eyes locked on the gazing ball that Will was holding so I would only glimpse Medusa's reflection, not the real thing. Then, in the green tinted glass, I saw her.

Grover was coming in for another turn at bat, but this time he flew a little too low. Medusa grabbed the stick and pulled him off course—and right into us. Will and I scrambled to get out of the way, but Grover tumbled through the air and crashed into Will, the force sending the two of them flying into the arms of a stone grizzly bear with a painful "Ummphh!" I saw Will cushion Grover from the collision, but at a price. The blond's head smacked back in the bear and his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

Medusa was about to lunge at them when I yelled, "Hey!"

I didn't know what the heck I was doing, but I knew I couldn't have her hurting my friends. I grabbed the ball that had rolled from Will's hand, and advanced on her, which wasn't easy, holding a sword and a glass ball. If she charged, I'd have a hard time defending myself.

But she let me approach—twenty feet, ten feet.

I could see the reflection of her face now. Surely it wasn't really that ugly. The green swirls of the gazing ball must be distorting it, making it look worse.

"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Jenny," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't. It was Athena's fault I turned into this monster, Jenny. She turned me from a beautiful monster into this. I used to be the most sought after woman, and now look at what I am!"

I hesitated.

"I don't believe that Athena did this to you for punishment," I said. "I think she did this to protect you."

"What?" Medusa snapped.

"You believe she cursed you, but I think she gifted you. She gave you this power so that you could protect yourself, I believe. You had the power to say no."

Medusa hissed. I hesitated, fascinated by the face I saw reflected in the glass-the eyes that seemed to burn straight through the green tint, making my arms go weak.

From the cement grizzly, Grover moaned, "Jenny, don't listen to her!"

Medusa cackled. "Too late."

She lunged at me with her talons.

I slashed up with my sword, heard a sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a cavern—the sound of a monster disintegrating.

Something fell to the ground next to my foot. It took all my willpower not to look. I could feel warm ooze soaking into my sock, little dying snake heads tugging at my shoelaces.

"Oh, yuck," Grover said. His eyes were still tightly closed, but I guess he could hear the thing gurgling and steaming. "Mega-yuck."

Grover moaned as he climbed down from the grizzly statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head.

He approached me, snatching her veil from the ground, and said, "Don't move."

Very, very carefully, without looking down, he knelt and draped the monster's head in black cloth, then picked it up. It was still dripping green juice.

"Are you okay?" he asked me, his voice trembling.

"Yeah," I decided, though I felt like throwing up my double cheeseburger. "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"

"Once you sever it, it becomes a spoil of war," he said. "Same as your minotaur horn. But don't unwrap the head. It can still petrify you."

"The Red Baron," I said. "Good job, man."

He managed a bashful grin. "That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun."

He snatched his shoes out of the air. I touched my sword to my neck. Together, the two of us stumbled back to where Will was. I grabbed his legs and Grover his arms, the two of us carrying him back to the warehouse, where there were seats. Grover and I gently set Will down before we found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.

Finally Grover said, "Did you really believe what you were saying to Medusa, or were you just trying to buy us time?"

"You mean, if the power she got was actually a gift instead of a curse?" I asked.

He nodded.

I sighed, before nodding "Yeah. I mean, I feel kind of bad for her."

"She just tried to kill us, and you're feeling bad for her?" Grover said in disbelief.

"She had horrible fortunes," I argued. "Yeah, she turned people to stone, but think about it. For her beauty, she was raped. For her ugliness, she was killed. I believe that women didn't have power back then, and so Athena blessed her with the power to say no to someone she didn't want. Yeah, maybe Medusa tried to kill us, but it wasn't her fault she turned into a monster. She was just another mortal that was caught between the feud of two gods."

Grover muttered some things under his breath that I didn't make out, but I decided that it wasn't important. I pulled out the small container of nectar I had and trickled it over Will's head, where a particularly nasty looking cut was oozing blood. I gave it five drops before stopping, and immediately, the wound began to close. I sighed in relief.

"What are we going to do with the head?" Grover asked.

I stared at the thing. One little snake was hanging out of a hole in the plastic. The words printed on the side of the bag said: WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS!

I was angry with all the gods for this whole quest, for getting us blown off the road and in two major fights the very first day out from camp. At this rate, we'd never make it to L.A. alive, much less before the summer solstice.

What had Medusa said?

Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue.

I got up. "I'll be back."

"Jenny," Grover called after me. "What are you-"

I searched the back of the warehouse until I found Medusa's office. Her account book showed her six most recent sales, all shipments to the Underworld to decorate Hades and Persephone's garden. According to one freight bill, the Underworld's billing address was DOA Recording Studios, West Hollywood, California. I folded up the bill and stuffed it in my pocket.

In the cash register I found twenty dollars, a few golden drachmas, and some packing slips for Hermes Overnight Express, each with a little leather bag attached for coins. I rummaged around the rest of the office until I found the right-size box.

I went back to the picnic table, packed up Medusa's head, and filled out a delivery slip:

The Gods

Mount Olympus

th Floor,

Empire State Building

New York, NY

With best wishes,

JENNY JACKSON

Will began to groan, opening his eyes and staring around him curiously.

"They're not going to like that," Grover warned. "They'll think you're impertinent."

I poured some golden drachmas in the pouch. As soon as I closed it, there was a sound like a cash register. The package floated off the table and disappeared with a pop! Will's eyes widened as he realized what I had done, but he didn't comment.

"I am impertinent," I said.

I looked at Will, daring him to criticize.

He didn't. He seemed resigned to the fact that I had a major talent for ticking off the gods. "Come on," he muttered. "We need a new plan."

* * *

 **How's life my readers?**

 **Did you guys like the part about Jenny talking about her opinions with Medusa? I always thought of it in that way. Maybe you guys are like Jenny and agree, or maybe you guys like like Grover. I don't know. All I know is that I love you guys.**

 **I tried my best to have a situation where Jenny fought Medusa. I really did. Yeah, it wasn't the best, but I did what I could. Did you guys think it was a good idea?**

 **The next chapter should be up around this or next week, because I remember it being fairly short. Or maybe I'm just going crazy. I've been doing homework and studying for biology tests. Apparently, my teacher likes to pick things from off the ground or the lost and found and claim it as his own. Nice, am I right?**

 **Anyways, I can't believe people are favoriting and following this story. I was rereading my first few chapters, and boy, can I tell you they were BAD. Worse than bad. My writing skills were terrible a year and a half ago. I guess that means I'm improving.**

 **I'm getting off topic. I just wanted to get this chapter up, and I wanted to warn you guys, the story is going to kind of stray from here. Will's personality is different from Annabeth's, at least, in the first book, so things are going to change. If you don't recognize it from the book, that means I've changed something.**

 **Ugh, this author's note was long. Thanks to those still reading this. See you next time!**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**


	12. We Get Advice From A Poodle

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

 **WE GET ADVICE FROM A POODLE**

 **I obviously don't own Percy Jackson**

* * *

We were pretty miserable that night.

We camped out in the woods, a hundred yards from the main road, in a marshy clearing that local kids had obviously been using for parties. The ground was littered with flattened soda cans and fast food wrappers.

I handed Will my small stash of ambrosia, just to make sure he was okay. He was looking a little pale. He took a small square and broke it in half before wolfing it down, sighing in relief as some color came back to his face.

We'd taken some food and blankets from Aunty Em's, but we didn't dare light a fire to dry our damp clothes. The Furies and Medusa had provided enough excitement for one day. We didn't want to attract anything else. And I might have just jinxed us. Oh well.

We decided to sleep in shifts. I volunteered to take first watch. None of the others protested.

Will curled up on the blankets and was snoring as soon as his head hit the ground. Grover fluttered with his flying shoes to the lowest bough of a tree, put his back to the trunk, and stared at the night sky.

"Go ahead and sleep," I told him. "I'll wake you if there's trouble."

He nodded, but still didn't close his eyes. "It makes me sad, Jenny."

"What does? The fact that you signed up for this stupid quest?" I grumbled.

"No. This makes me sad." He pointed at all the garbage on the ground. "And the sky. You can't even see the stars. They've polluted the sky. This is a terrible time to be a satyr."

"Oh, yeah. I guess you'd be an environmentalist."

He glared at me. "Only a human wouldn't be. Your species is clogging up the world so fast ... ah, never mind. It's useless to lecture a human."

"Hey! I am an environmentalist. Kind of." I protested.

He raised an eyebrow. "Kind of?"

"I... I buy clothes from donation places," I said, "so less supply means less demand, right? I take five minute showers. I don't eat more than I need to. That makes me kind of an environmentalist... right?"

"In a way, I guess, but at the rate things are going, I'll never find Pan."

"Pam? Like the cooking spray?"

"Pan!" he cried indignantly. "P-A-N. The great god Pan! What do you think I want a searcher's license for?"

A strange breeze rustled through the clearing, temporarily overpowering the stink of trash and muck. It brought the smell of berries and wildflowers and clean rainwater, things that might've once been in these woods. Suddenly I was nostalgic for something I'd never known.

"Tell me about the search," I said.

Grover looked at me cautiously, as if he were afraid I was just making fun.

"The God of Wild Places disappeared two thousand years ago," he told me. "A sailor off the coast of Ephesos heard a mysterious voice crying out from the shore, 'Tell them that the great god Pan has died!' When humans heard the news, they believed it. They've been pillaging Pan's kingdom ever since. But for the satyrs, Pan was our lord and master. He protected us and the wild places of the earth. We refuse to believe that he died. In every generation, the bravest satyrs pledge their lives to finding Pan. They search the earth, exploring all the wildest places, hoping to find where he is hidden, and wake him from his sleep."

"And you want to be a searcher."

"It's my life's dream," he said. "My father was a searcher. And my Uncle Ferdinand ... the statue you saw back there—"

"Oh, right, sorry."

Grover shook his head. "Uncle Ferdinand knew the risks. So did my dad. But I'll succeed. I'll be the first searcher to return alive."

"Hang on—the first?"

Grover took his reed pipes out of his pocket. "No searcher has ever come back. Once they set out, they disappear. They're never seen alive again."

"Not once in two thousand years?"

"No."

"And your dad? You have no idea what happened to him?"

"None."

"But you still want to go," I said, amazed. "I mean, you really think you'll be the one to find Pan?"

"I have to believe that, Jenny. Every searcher does. It's the only thing that keeps us from despair when we look at what humans have done to the world. I have to believe Pan can still be awakened."

I stared at the orange haze of the sky and tried to understand how Grover could pursue a dream that seemed so hopeless. Then again, was I any better?

"How are we going to get into the Underworld?" I asked him. "I mean, what chance do we have against a god?"

"I don't know," he admitted.

"Grover, there's something wrong with this quest, you do realize that, right?" I asked.

"Well, duh. You're getting blamed for stealing a thunderbolt that Hades took."

"That's not what I mean," I said. "The Fur—The Kindly Ones were sort of holding back. Like Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy ... why did she wait so long to try to kill me? Then on the bus, they just weren't as aggressive as they could've been."

"They seemed plenty aggressive to me."

I shook my head. "They were screeching at us: 'Where is it? Where?'"

"Maybe... they seemed to be asking about an object."

"Yeah."

"If we've misunderstood something about this quest, and we only have nine days to find the master bolt..." He looked at me like he was hoping for answers, but I didn't have any.

I thought about what Medusa had said: I was being used by the gods. What lay ahead of me was worse than petrification. "I haven't been straight with you," I told Grover.

He snickered.

"Grover, shut up! It doesn't matter if I'm bi or gay, does it? Anyways, I don't care about the master bolt. I agreed to go to the Underworld so I could bring back my mother."

Grover blew a soft note on his pipes. "I know that, Jenny. But are you sure that's the only reason?"

"I'm not doing it to help my father. He doesn't care about me. I don't care about him."

Grover gazed down from his tree branch. "Look, Jenny, I'm not as smart as Annabeth. I'm not as brave as you. I'm not as skilled as Will at combat. But I'm pretty good at reading emotions. You're glad your dad is alive. You feel good that he's claimed you, and part of you wants to make him proud. That's why you mailed Medusa's head to Olympus. You wanted him to notice what you'd done."

"Yeah? Well maybe satyr emotions work differently than human emotions. Because you're wrong. I don't care what he thinks. I never have, and I never will."

Grover pulled his feet up onto the branch. "Okay, Jenny. Whatever. If you say so."

"Besides, I haven't done anything worth bragging about. We barely got out of New York and we're stuck here with no money and no way west. Why... why would he want to be proud of me?"

Grover looked at the night sky, like he was thinking about that problem. "How about I take first watch, huh? You get some sleep."

I wanted to protest, but he started to play Mozart, soft and sweet, and I turned away, my eyes stinging. After a few bars of Piano Concerto no., I was asleep.

In my dreams, I stood in a dark cavern before a gaping pit. Gray mist creatures churned all around me, whispering rags of smoke that I somehow knew were the spirits of the dead.

They tugged at my clothes, trying to pull me back, but I felt compelled to walk forward to the very edge of the chasm.

Looking down made me dizzy.

The pit yawned so wide and was so completely black, I knew it must be bottomless. Yet I had a feeling that something was trying to rise from the abyss, something huge and evil.

Something I would not want to see, let along face in battle.

The little hero, an amused voice echoed far down in the darkness. Too weak, too young, but perhaps you will do.

The voice felt ancient—cold and heavy. It wrapped around me like sheets of lead.

They have misled you, boy, it said. Barter with me. I will give you what you want.

A shimmering image hovered over the void: my mother, frozen at the moment she'd dissolved in a shower of gold. Her face was distorted with pain, as if the Minotaur were still squeezing her neck. Her eyes looked directly at me, pleading: Go!

I tried to cry out, but my voice wouldn't work.

Cold, high laughter echoed from the chasm.

An invisible force pulled me forward. It would drag me into the pit unless I stood firm. But all I could think was that this could not be Voldemort because Voldemort wasn't real.

Help me rise, Jenny. The voice became hungrier. Bring me the bolt. Strike a blow against the treacherous gods!

The spirits of the dead whispered around me, No! Wake!

The image of my mother began to fade. The thing in the pit tightened its unseen grip around me.

I realized it wasn't interested in pulling me in. It was using me to pull itself out.

Good, it murmured. Good.

Wake! the dead whispered. Wake!

Someone was shaking me.

No!

My eyes flew opened, and it was daylight.

"Well," Will said, smirking. "The zombie lives."

I was trembling from the dream. I could still feel the grip of the chasm monster around my chest. "How long was I asleep?"

"Long enough for me to cook breakfast." Will tossed me a bag of nacho-flavored corn chips from Aunty Em's snack bar. "And Grover went exploring. Look, he found a friend."

My eyes had trouble focusing.

Grover was sitting cross-legged on a blanket with something fuzzy in his lap, a dirty, unnaturally pink stuffed animal.

No, I realized after rubbing my eyes a couple of times and they adjusted. It wasn't a stuffed animal. It was a pink poodle.

The poodle yapped at me suspiciously. Grover said, "No, she's not."

I blinked. "Are you ... talking to that thing?"

The poodle growled.

"This thing," Grover warned, "is our ticket west. Be nice to him."

"You can talk to animals?"

Grover ignored the question. "Jenny, meet Gladiola. Gladiola, Jenny."

I stared at Will, figuring he'd crack up at this practical joke they were playing on me, but he looked deadly serious.

"I'm not saying hello to a pink poodle," I said. "Forget it."

"Jenny," Will said in a serious tone, but I could almost see the humor sparkling behind his eyes. "I said hello to the poodle. You say hello to the poodle."

The poodle growled.

I said hello to the poodle.

Will snickered.

Grover explained that he'd come across Gladiola in the woods and they'd struck up a conversation. The poodle had run away from a rich local family, who'd posted a reward for his return. Gladiola didn't really want to go back to his family, but he was willing to if it meant helping Grover. I wondered how bad it was to have a rich family. It would have all the food it needed, all the pampering, and all the fun things in life. Heck, it would even have toys. Do you know how unfair that was?

"How does Gladiola know about the reward?" I asked.

"He read the signs," Grover said. "Duh."

"Of course," I said sarcastically, earning another snort and jab in the ribs from Will. "Silly me."

"So we turn in Gladiola," Will explained in his best Annabeth impression strategy voice, "we get money, and we buy tickets to Los Angeles. Simple."

I thought about my dream—the whispering voices of the dead, the thing in the chasm, and my mother's face, shimmering as it dissolved into gold. All that might be waiting for me in the West.

"Not another bus," I said warily.

"No," he agreed.

He pointed downhill, toward train tracks I hadn't been able to see last night in the dark. "There's an Amtrak station half a mile that way. According to Gladiola, the west-bound train leaves at noon."

* * *

 **Well this chapter was short. It had to have been my shortest one. As for the Will question thing about him healing the stone people, I don't know. Maybe, if they weren't dead, but I'm pretty sure they died, unless they were like Khione's ice statues. I have no idea if I spelled her name properly. Probably not.**

 **Yeah, this chapter was only a little under 2,500 words. Sorry about that. Hey, shoutout to those who said my story was good! Like... the five people who did. Lmao.**

 **I started watching Kardashian Spoof. It's hilarious. Also, if any of you like Harry Potter, please read the story Oh God Not Again! It's so** **beautiful. I believe its about 160k words, so it's not even bad. Like seriously. You won't regret it.**

 **I just remembered someone cheated on a test yesterday. The teacher saw, and called them (not gonna say the gender) out, and they even tried to say they weren't copying. Then, during my free block, they boasted about cheating off a different person so they didn't lie to the teacher. Honestly, how stupid can you get?**

 **I'm getting off topic here. I wanted to say, unless I decide that Will is gonna be like Annabeth, the next chapter isn't going to be the same. I don't know what to do with it. I mean, for the Medusa chapter, I just had to knock Will out and problem solved. Here, I have to find something one of them likes. A park maybe for Grover? Have any of you guys been to a nice national park in the West? I live in San Francisco and I don't even know. I can't wait for the Titan's Curse. I'll be writing about my own city.**

 **Anyways, just would like to say, see you next time!**

 **~usernamesarehardtochoose**


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